"I am, gentlemen, with every sentiment of esteem and respect,
"Your devoted friend and servant,
"Daniel Dana.
"Newburyport, Oct. 3, 1820."
"Allusion is made in his farewell sermon at Newburyport, to his 'recently impaired health.' This was premonitory. Scarcely had he removed his family to Hanover, and entered on his new duties, before the crisis came to which, doubtless, the wasting cares and anxieties of preceding years and the recent severe pressure upon his sensibilities, had been silently but inevitably tending. His health gave way, and great depression of spirits accompanied his bodily languor. He took more than one long journey in the vain effort to recruit his energies. He writes to a friend of being 'in a state of great and very uncommon debility, undoubtedly to be attributed to the protracted operation of distressing causes, both on mind and frame.' He also states, that, whilst absent from Hanover in accordance with the advice of his physician, he still hoped to be able, after his strength was recruited, to accomplish something in the matter of soliciting aid to the funds of the college; a work which, however uncongenial to his tastes, he found would necessarily be devolved on its president.
"The winter months passed by, and there was still little or no improvement in his health. When it became known that he was agitating the question of resigning his office, many urgent requests were made to him not to decide hastily. He delayed only till April, and then called a meeting of the Trustees, to be held early in May, for the purpose of receiving and acting upon his resignation of his office. He wished it to be considered as 'absolute and final.' The notification to a member of the Board with whom he was specially intimate, was accompanied by a letter in which he says:
"'You will naturally conclude that the resolution which I have taken has cost me many a struggle, and much severe distress. This is the fact. The last seven months have been with me a scene of suffering indeed. I have fondly hoped that repeated journeyings would give me relief. But their effect has been only partial and temporary. Such is my prostration at this moment, that the duties of my office, and not less its cares and its responsibilities, seem a burden quite beyond my power of bearing. Had it pleased God to make me an instrument of important good to the college, I should have esteemed myself privileged indeed; but this privilege, though denied to me, awaits, I confidently hope, some more favored instrument of the Divine benevolence. I earnestly pray, that, in what pertains to this great concern, the Trustees may be favored with much heavenly wisdom and direction.'
"He now took a long journey to Ohio, visiting at Athens the brother who had been the companion of his early years. Under these favorable influences, his health began more decidedly to improve. At their meeting, July 4, the Trustees of the college, by unanimous resolution, requested him to withdraw his resignation; but he declined to do so, though 'gratefully acknowledging the kindness expressed in their communication.'
"Many years after these events, the Rev. Dr. Lord, so long and so honorably the president of Dartmouth College, thus referred to Dr. Dana's connection with the institution:
"'He was chosen president for his well-known excellence as a scholar and theologian, and his extraordinary ministerial qualifications. He was honored the country over, in these respects. It was not doubted that he would be equally honorable as president of the college, should his health endure.