While I was at the Harvard Law School in 1863-4, Richard H. Dana was United States District Attorney at Boston, and I often saw him at Cambridge, where he lived. His book, "Two Years Before the Mast," was and is a favorite of mine. I suppose that I have read it twenty times, and I hope that the boys of this day read and love it. It is in a class by itself. There is, I think, not in English, and probably not in any language, another account of seafaring life written in the forecastle by one of the crew, who was also a gentleman and a scholar and master of a charming style. The veracity and spirit of the narrative have made it a classic both here and in England. In California it is particularly valued, for Dana was one of the pioneers and had sailed through the Golden Gate on the "Alert" in the winter of 1835-6, many years before the Mexican War and the discovery of gold, when San Francisco as yet was not. When, at the end of the visit, the good ship floated out on the tide, herds of deer came down to the northerly shore to watch the unusual sight. Dana left college and went on this voyage to cure an affection of the eyes. After his return he graduated at Harvard in the class of 1837 and became a lawyer.
Mr. Dana was qualified by nature and training to become a leading figure in the public life of this country, and his ambition was that way, but the cards ran against him. As Goldsmith said of Burke, he was "too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit," high-strung and sensitive as a race-horse, well bred and distinguished in bearing, a clear, graceful and forcible speaker, an admirable advocate, and an accomplished jurist. One of his greatest professional efforts and triumphs was his argument before the Supreme Court of the United States in the Consolidated Prize Cases, when he had to make it clear to the Court how it was that the stupendous struggle in which the country was engaged could be a-war with belligerent rights as between ourselves and other nations, and a local insurrection as between ourselves and the South.
It may be remembered that, at the centennial anniversary of the battle of Lexington, Mr. Dana delivered the oration. It begins with the words, "How mysterious is the touch of fate which gives immortality to a spot of earth, to a name." It is a noble commemorative address. Concord has always plumed itself because it had a real fight, while the Lexington men only stood up to be shot at and did not damage the English. As the anniversaries were approaching and good-natured rivalry was in the air, Concord issued a prospectus of some kind, which did not suit Mr. Dana's fastidious taste, and he said to Judge Hoar, of Concord: "How is it, Judge, that you folks at Concord have sent out such a shabby, badly-written paper? It is positively ungrammatical." "O," said the Judge, "you know, Dana, at Concord we always did murder the King's English."