RICHARD HENRY DANA (I 815-1882 ), son of the last-mentioned, was born in Cambridge (Mass.), Aug. 1, 1815. He entered Harvard in the class of 1835, but an illness affecting his sight necessitated a suspension of his college work, and in Aug. 1834 he shipped before the mast for California, returning in Sept. 1836. This voyage was really a turning point in his career, renewing his health, turning him into a self-reliant, energetic man with broad interests and keen sympathies, and giving him the material for his Two Years before the Mast (184o), one of the best American books on the sea. Not only is this still widely read at home and abroad, but it also has historic significance. It created interest in California prior to the gold rush; with Melville's White Jacket (185o) it led to reforms in the treatment of sailors; and it vividly preserves a bygone epoch. Before the publication of his book, Dana had completed his legal training at Harvard, and he now began the practice of law, his former experience immediately bringing him a large number of maritime cases. In 1841 he published The Seaman's Friend, republished in England as The Seaman's Manual, a useful and readable book. In spite of the ostracism and danger it involved, Dana became prominently associated in 1848, with the Free Soil movement and volunteered his services for negroes seized under the Fugitive Slave Act. In 1857 he became a regular attendant at the meetings of the famous Boston Saturday club, to the members of which he dedicated his account of a vacation trip, To Cuba and Back (1859). He returned to America from a trip round the world in time to participate in the presidential campaign of 186o, and after Lincoln's inauguration he was ap pointed United States district attorney for Massachusetts. In this office in 1863 he won before the Supreme Court of the United States the famous prize case of the "Amy Warwick," on the decision in which depended the right of the Government to blockade the Confederate ports without giving the Confederate States an international status as belligerents. He brought out in 1865 an edition of Wheaton's International Law, his notes con stituting a most learned and valuable authority on this subject and its bearings on American history and diplomacy; but Dana was charged by the editor of two earlier editions, William Beach Lawrence, with infringing his copyright, and was involved in litigation for 13 years. Dana's political aspirations were largely frustrated. He declined the position of United States district judge, but he became a member of the Massachusetts house of representatives (1867-68), and in 1867 was retained, with William M. Evarts, to prosecute Jefferson Davis, whose admission to bail he counselled. Although the Senate refused to ratify Grant's nomination of him for minister to England, he was, in 1877, one of the counsel for the United States before the commission that met at Halifax, N.S., to arbitrate the fisheries question between the United States and Great Britain. In 1878 he gave up his law practice, and he devoted the rest of his life to study and travel. He died in Rome, Italy, Jan. 6, 1882.
For the elder Richard Henry Dana, see J. G. Wilson, Bryant and His Friends (1885) . For the younger, see C. F. Adams, Richard Henry Dana: a Biography (189o) and Exercises . . . Celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Richard Henry Dana (Cam bridge, 1916) .