A signer of the Articles of Confederation, he was secretary to the diplomatic mission that negotiated the end of the American Revolution, and was appointed Minister to Russia.

He returned the following year, convinced that a friendly settlement of the dispute was impossible, and was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1777, where he signed the Articles of Confederation in 1778.

As a member of the latter body, he became chairman in January 1778 of the committee appointed to visit General George Washington at Valley Forge and confer with him concerning the reorganization of the Continental Army.

[3] In 1780, he was named as American minister to the Russian Empire, and while he never gained official recognition from Catherine the Great,[4] he remained in Saint Petersburg until 1783.

An earnest advocate of the adoption of the Federal constitution, he was a member of the state convention which ratified it in 1788 and was one of the most influential advisers of the leaders of the Federalist Party, specifically its Essex Junto.

His grandson, Richard Henry Dana Jr., was a noted lawyer and author who served as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts and wrote the classic Two Years Before the Mast (1840).