LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



worth while to place on record the particulars I have 

 gathered, although they are so imperfect that we may 

 almost apply to their subject the words of the dying 

 Keats, " Here lies one whose name was writ in water." 



Reynolds was a resident of Ohio, but whether a native 

 of that State I have not learned. He wrote a preface 

 (as Allibone has pointed out) to a curious book by a 

 school-teacher of Miami County, Ohio, Georgii Wash- 

 ingtonii Vita, Francisco Glass Conscripta, a review of 

 which by Professor Kingsley is not entirely forgotten by 

 the antiquaries in New Haven. His literary reputation 

 rests upon a narrative of the voyage of the Potomac, 

 various short articles on South Sea exploration, and some 

 nautical sketches which he wrote for the Knickerbocker 

 Magazine. We learn from his own words that in early 

 life he had imbibed a relish, perhaps accidentally, for 

 books of voyages and travel when he had not even seen 

 the ocean. 



1 Though a dweller in the western forests," he says, 

 " I could reason from effects to causes, and needed only 

 the roughly sketched history of the early settlement of 

 our country to convince me that the maritime enterprise 

 of our ancestors was an important element in the founda- 

 tion of our subsequent power; and that whatever tended 

 to increase the stimulus to exertion, and extend the field 

 of commercial research, was to add more to our national 

 resources than to discover mines of diamonds, or heap our 

 treasuries with coined gold." 



After much preliminary agitation, Mr. Reynolds, on the 

 22d of January, 1828, addressed a letter to the Speaker 

 of the House, upon the subject of a naval expedition, 

 and he accompanied the letter with memorials from in- 

 fluential persons in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, 

 and South Carolina. He also gave in full a preamble and 

 resolution adopted by the House of Delegates in Mary- 

 land. This led to favorable expressions from the House 



