Two Years Before the Mast | Page 5

my lot has been so long cast.'' This vow he
carried out in no visionary scheme of mutiny or foolish ``paying back''
to the captain, but by awakening a ``strong sympathy'' for the sailors
``by a voice from the forecastle,'' in his ``Two Years Before the Mast.''
While at sea he made entries almost daily in a pocket notebook and at
leisure hours wrote these out fully. This full account of his voyage was
lost with his trunk containing sailors' clothes and all souvenirs and
presents for family and friends by the carelessness of a relative who
took charge of his things at the wharf when he landed in Boston in
1836. Later, while in the Law School, Mr. Dana re-wrote this account
from the notebook, which, fortunately, he had not entrusted to the lost
trunk. This account he read to his father and Washington Allston, artist
and poet, his uncle by marriage. Both advised its publication and the
manuscript was sent to William Cullen Bryant, who had then moved to

New York. Mr. Bryant, after looking it over, took it to a prominent
publisher of his city, as the publishers at that time most able to give the
book a large sale. They offered to buy the book outright but refused the
author any share in the profits. The firm had submitted the manuscript
to Alonzo Potter, afterwards Bishop of Pennsylvania, then acting as one
of their readers. Bishop Potter, meeting Dana in England years later,
told him most emphatically that he had advised the purchase at any
price necessary to secure it. The most, however, that the elder Dana and
Bryant were able to get from the publishers was $250, so that modest
sum with two dozen printed copies was all the author received at that
time for this most successful book. Incidentally, however, the
publication brought Mr. Dana law practice, especially among sailors,
and was an introduction to him not only in this country but in England.
Editions were published in Great Britain and France. Moxon, the
London publisher, sent Mr. Dana not only presentation copies but as a
voluntary honorarium, there being no international copyright law at that
time, a sum of money larger than the publisher gave him for the
manuscript. He also received kindly words of appreciation from Rogers,
Brougham, Moore, Bulwer, Dickens and others, and fifteen years later
his reputation secured him a large social and literary reception in
England in 1856. At last, in 1868, the original copyright expired and
my father brought out the ``author's edition'' thoroughly revised and
with many important additions to the text including the ``Twenty-four
Years After'' under a fair arrangement for percentage of sales with
Fields, Osgood and Co., the predecessors of the present publishers.
In reading the story of this Harvard College undergraduate's experience,
one should bear in mind, to appreciate the dangers of his rounding the
Cape, that the brig Pilgrim was only one hundred and eighty tons
burden and eighty-six feet and six inches long, shorter on the water line
than many of our summer-sailing sloop and schooner yachts.
Richard Henry Dana.
[1] ``Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'' A Biography. By Charles Francis
Adams. In two volumes. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
[2] ``Speeches in Stirring Times and Letters to a Son.'' Richard Henry
Dana, Jr., with introduction and notes by Richard Henry Dana, 3rd. In
one volume. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

[3] Extracts from this book were chosen by the oculists of the United
States for use in testing eyes on account of its clearness in style and
freedom from long words.


CHAPTER I
The fourteenth of August[1] was the day fixed upon for the sailing of
the brig Pilgrim, on her voyage from Boston, round Cape Horn, to the
Western coast of North America. As she was to get under way early in
the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock, in full
sea-rig, with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three years'
voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if
possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books,
with a plenty of hard work, plain food, and open air, a weakness of the
eyes, which had obliged me to give up my studies, and which no
medical aid seemed likely to remedy.
The change from the tight frock-coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an
undergraduate at Harvard, to the loose duck trousers, checked shirt, and
tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was
soon made; and I supposed that I should pass very well for a Jack tar.
But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and
while I thought myself to be