TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

By Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

With an introduction and notes by
Homer Eaton Keyes, B.L.
Assistant Professor of Art in Dartmouth College

----Crowded in the rank and narrow ship,--
Housed on the wild sea with wild usages,--
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.
                 Coleridge's Wallenstein.

CONTENTS

Introduction
  Biographical Note
  California and her Missions
  Bibliographical References
  Diagram of Ships
  Explanation of Diagram
Two Years Before the Mast
Twenty-Four Years After

INTRODUCTION

Biographical Note

Two years before the mast were but an episode in the life of
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; yet the narrative in which he details the
experiences of that period is, perhaps, his chief claim to a wide
remembrance.  His services in other than literary fields occupied
the greater part of his life, but they brought him comparatively
small recognition and many disappointments.  His happiest
associations were literary, his pleasantest acquaintanceships
those which arose through his fame as the author of one book.
The story of his life is one of honest and competent effort,
of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes.  The traditions
of his family forced him into a profession for which he was
intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have
been a scholar, teacher, and author; instead he became a lawyer.

Born in Cambridge, Mass., August 1, 1815, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.,
came of a line of Colonial ancestors whose legal understanding and
patriotic zeal had won them distinction.  His father, if possessed
of less vigor than his predecessors, was yet a man of culture and
ability.  He was widely known as poet, critic, and lecturer; and
endowed his son with native qualities of intelligence, good breeding,
and honesty.

After somewhat varied and troublous school days, young Dana entered
Harvard University, where he took high rank in his classes and bid
fair to make a reputation as a scholar.  But at the beginning of his
third year of college a severe attack of measles interrupted his
course, and so affected his eyes as to preclude, for a time at least,
all idea of study.  The state of the family finances was not such as to
permit of foreign travel in search of health.  Accordingly, prompted by
necessity and by a youthful love of adventure, he shipped as a common
sailor in the brig, Pilgrim, bound for the California coast.  His
term of service lasted a trifle over two years--from August, 1834,
to September, 1836.  The undertaking was one calculated to kill or cure.
Fortunately it had the latter effect; and, upon returning to his native
place, physically vigorous but intellectually starved, he reentered
Harvard and worked with such enthusiasm as to graduate in six months
with honor.

Then came the question of his life work.  Though intensely religious,
he did not feel called to the ministry; business made no appeal;
his ancestors had been lawyers; it seemed best that he should follow
where they had led.  Had conditions been those of to-day, he would
naturally have drifted into some field of scholarly research,
--political science or history.  As it was, he entered law school,
which, in 1840, he left to take up the practice of his profession.
But Dana had not the tact, the personal magnetism, or the business
sagacity to make a brilliant success before the bar.  Despite the
fact that he had become a master of legal theory, an authority upon
international questions, and a counsellor of unimpeachable integrity,
his progress was painfully slow and toilsome.  Involved with his lack
of tact and magnetism there was, too, an admirable quality of sturdy
obstinacy that often worked him injury.  Though far from sharing the
radical ideas of the Abolitionists, he was ardent in his anti-slavery
ideas and did not hesitate to espouse the unpopular doctrines of the
Free-Soil party of 1848, or to labor for the freedom of those Boston
negroes, who, under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, were in danger
of deportation to the South.

His activity in the latter direction resulted in pecuniary loss,
social ostracism and worse; for upon one occasion he was set upon
and nearly killed by a pair of thugs.  But Dana was not a man to be
swerved from his purpose by considerations of policy or of personal
safety.  He met his problems as they came to him, took the course
which he believed to be right and then stuck to it with indomitable
tenacity.  Yet, curiously enough, with none of the characteristics
of the politician, he longed for political preferment.  At the hands
of the people this came to him in smallest measure only.  Though at
one time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, he was defeated
as candidate for the lower house of Congress, and in 1876 suffered
the bitterest disappointment of his life, when the libellous attacks
of enemies prevented the ratification of his nomination as Minister
to England.

Previous to this he had served his country as United States
District Attorney during the Civil War, a time when the office
demanded the highest type of ability and uprightness.  That the
government appreciated this was shown in 1867 by its choice of
Dana as one of its counsel in the prosecution of Jefferson Davis
for treason.  The position of legal representative before the
Halifax tribunal of 1877, which met to discuss fishery questions
at issue between the United States and Canada, was given him no
doubt in part because of his eminent fitness, in part as balm for
the wound of the preceding year.

But whatever satisfaction he may have found in such honors as time
and ripening years brought to him, his chief joy and relaxation lay
in travel. When worry and overwork began to tell upon him, he would
betake himself to shore or mountains.  Upon several occasions he
visited Europe, and in 1859 made a tour of the world.  At length,
in 1876, he gave up active life and took residence abroad, with
the idea of finding leisure for the preparation of a treatise on
international law.  He was still engaged in collecting his material
when, on January 6, 1882, death overtook him.  He was buried in Rome
in the Protestant Cemetery, whose cypresses cast their long shadows
over the graves of many distinguished foreigners who have sought a
last refuge of health and peace under the skies of Italy.

Such a career as his would seem far enough from being a failure.
Yet, in retirement, Dana looked back upon it not without regret.
As a lawyer, he had felt a justifiable desire to see his labors
crowned by his elevation to the bench; as an active participant in
public affairs, he had felt that his services and talents rendered
him deserving of a seat in Congress.  Lacking these things, he might
have hoped that the practice of his profession would yield him a
fortune.  Here again he was disappointed.  In seeking the fulfillment
of his ambitions, he was always on the high road to success; he never
quite arrived.

It is remarkable that, having written one successful book, Dana did not
seek further reward as a man of letters.  Two Years before the Mast
appeared in 1840, while its author was still a law student.  Though
at the time it created no great stir in the United States, it was most
favorably received in England, where it paved the way for many pleasant
and valuable acquaintanceships.  The following year, Dana produced
a small volume on seamanship, entitled The Seaman's Friend.  This,
and a short account of a trip to Cuba in 1859, constitute the sole
additions to his early venture.  He was a copious letter-writer and
kept full journals of his various travels; but he never elaborated
them for publication.  Yet, long before his death, he had seen the
narrative of his sailor days recognized as an American classic.
Time has not diminished its reputation.  We read it to-day not
merely for its simple, unpretentious style; but for its clear
picture of sea life previous to the era of steam navigation, and
for its graphic description of conditions in California before
visions of gold sent the long lines of "prairie schooners" drifting
across the plains to unfold the hidden destiny of the West.

California and her Missions

It is not easy to realize that, during the stirring days when the
eastern coast-line of North America was experiencing the ferment
of revolution, the Pacific seaboard was almost totally unexplored,
its population largely a savage one.  But Spain, long established
in Mexico, was slowly pushing northward along the California coast.
Her emissaries were the Franciscan friars; her method the founding
of Indian missions round which, in due course, should arise towns
intended to afford harbor for Spanish ships and to serve as outposts
against the steady encroachments of Russia, who, from Alaska, was
reaching out toward San Francisco Bay.

Thus began the white settlement of California.  San Diego Mission
was founded in 1769; San Carlos, at Monterey, in 1770; San Francisco,
in 1776; Santa Barbara, in 1786.  For the general guardianship of
these missions a garrison, or presidio, was in each case provided.
It was responsible not only for the protection of the town thus
created, but for all the missions in the district.  The presidio of
San Diego, for example, was in charge of the missions of San Diego,
San Gabriel, San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey.  So, likewise,
there were garrisons with extensive jurisdiction at Santa Barbara,
Monterey, and San Francisco.

The Indians in the immediate vicinity of a mission were attached
thereto by a sort of gentle enslavement.  They were provided special
quarters, were carefully looked after by the priests, their religious
education fostered, and their innate laziness conquered by specific
requirements of labor in agriculture, cattle raising, and simple
handicrafts.  It was an arrangement which worked well for both parties
concerned.  The slavery of the Indians was not unlike the obligation
of children to their parents; they were comfortable, well behaved,
and for the most part contented with the rule of the friars, who,
on their side, began to accumulate considerable wealth from the
well-directed efforts of their charges.

The supposition was that in the course of years the Indians might
become so habituated to thrift and industry as to be released from
supervision and safely left to their own devices.  But that happy
consummation had not occurred when, in 1826, Mexico succeeded in
separating herself from the mother country and began her career as an
independent republic, of which California was a part.  Nevertheless,