Young Dale manifested an inclination for the sea at a very early period of life. The distrust of a parental control that has no foundation in nature, and which is apt to be regarded with jealousy, stimulated if it did not quicken this desire, and we find him at the tender age of twelve, or in 1768, making a voyage between Norfolk and Liverpool, in a vessel commanded by one of his own uncles. On his return home, he appears to have passed nearly a twelve-month on shore; but his desire to become a sailor still continuing, in the spring of 1770 he was regularly apprenticed to a respectable merchant and ship-owner, of the borough of Norfolk, named Newton. From this moment his fortune in life was cast, and he continued devotedly employed in the profession until his enterprise, prudence and gallantry enabled him finally to retire with credit, an unblemished name, and a competency.
During his apprenticeship, Dale appears to have been, most of the time, employed in the West India trade. Every sailor has his chances and hair-breadth escapes, and our young mariner met with two, at that period of his life, which may be thought worthy of notice. On one occasion he fell from the spars stowed on the belfry into the vessel’s hold, hitting the kelson, a distance of near twenty feet; escaping, however, without material injury. A much greater risk was incurred on another. While the vessel to which he belonged was running off the wind, with a stiff breeze, Dale was accidentally knocked overboard by the jib sheets, and was not picked up without great difficulty. He was an hour in the water, sustaining himself by swimming, and he ever spoke of the incident as one of more peril than any other in a perilous career.
When nineteen, or in 1775, Dale had risen to the station of chief mate on board a large brig belonging to his owner. In this situation he appears to have remained industriously engaged during the few first months of the struggle for independence; the active warfare not having yet extended itself as far south as his part of the country. Early in 1776, however, the aspect of things began to change, and it is probable that the interruption to commerce rendered him the master of his own movements.
Virginia, in common with most of the larger and more maritime colonies, had a sort of marine of its own; more especially anterior to the Declaration of Independence. It consisted principally of bay craft, and was employed in the extensive estuaries and rivers of that commonwealth. On board of one of these light cruisers Dale was entered as a lieutenant, in the early part of the memorable year 1776. While in this service, he was sent a short distance for some guns, in a river craft; but falling in with a tender of the Liverpool frigate, which ship was then cruising on the Cape Henry station, he was captured and carried into Norfolk. These tenders were usually smart little cruisers, another, belonging to the same frigate, having been taken shortly before, by the U. S. brig Lexington, after a sharp and bloody conflict. Resistance in the case of Dale was consequently out of the question, his capture having been altogether a matter of course.
On reaching Norfolk, our young officer was thrown on board a prison-ship. Here he found himself in the midst of those whom it was the fashion to call “loyal subjects.” Many of them were his old school-mates and friends. Among the latter was a young man of the name of Bridges Gutteridge, a sailor like himself, and one who possessed his entire confidence. Mr. Gutteridge, who it is believed subsequently took part with his countrymen himself, was then employed by the British, in the waters of the Chesapeake, actually commanding a tender in their service. The quarrel was still recent; and honorable, as well as honest men, under the opinions which prevailed in that day, might well be divided as to its merits. Mr. Gutteridge had persuaded himself he was pursuing the proper course. Entertaining such opinions, he earnestly set about the attempt of making a convert of his captured friend. The usual arguments, touching the sacred rights of the king—himself merely a legalized usurper, by the way, if any validity is to be given to the claims of hereditary right to the crown—and the desperate nature of the “rebel cause,” were freely and strenuously used, until Dale began to waver in his faith. In the end, he yielded and consented to accompany his friend in a cruise against the vessels of the state. This occurred in the month of May, and, hostilities beginning now to be active, the tender soon fell in with a party of Americans, in some pilot boats, that were employed in the Rappahannock. A warm engagement ensued, in which the tender was compelled to run, after meeting with a heavy loss. It was a rude initiation into the mysteries of war, the fighting being of a desperate, and almost of a personal character. This was one of those combats that often occurred about this period, and in those waters, most of them being close and sanguinary.
In this affair, Dale received a severe wound, having been hit in the head by a musket ball; with this wound he was confined several weeks at Norfolk, during which time he had abundance of leisure to reflect on the false step into which he had been persuaded, and to form certain healthful resolutions for the future. To use his own words, in speaking of this error of his early life, he determined “never again to put himself in the way of the bullets of his own country.” This resolution, however, it was necessary to conceal, if he would escape the horrors of a prison-ship, and he “bided his time,” fully determined to take service again under the American flag, at the first fitting opportunity.
In the peculiar state of the two countries at the time, and with the doubtful and contested morality of the misunderstanding, there was nothing extraordinary in this incident. Similar circumstances occurred to many men, who, with the best intentions and purest motives, saw, or fancied they saw, reasons for changing sides in what, in their eyes, was strictly a family quarrel. In the case of Dale, however, the feature most worthy of comment was the singleness of mind and simple integrity with which he used to confess his own error, together with the manner in which he finally became a convert to the true political faith. No narrative of the life of this respectable seaman would be complete, without including this temporary wavering of purpose; nor would any delineation of his character be just, that did not point out the candor and sincerity with which he, in after life, admitted his fault.
Dale was only in his twentieth year when he received this instructive lesson from the “bullets of his countrymen.” From that time, he took good care not to place himself again in their way, going, in June or July, to Bermuda, on a more peaceable expedition, in company with William Gutteridge, a relative of his beguiling friend. On the return passage, the vessel was captured by the Lexington, the brig just mentioned, then a successful cruiser, under the orders of Capt. John Barry; an officer who subsequently died at the head of the service. This occurred just after the Declaration of Independence, and Dale immediately offered himself as a volunteer under the national flag. He was received and rated as a midshipman within a few hours of his capture. This was the commencement of Dale’s service in the regular navy of his native country. It was also the commencement of his acquaintance with the distinguished commander of the Lexington, whose friendship and respect he enjoyed down to the day of the latter’s death. While the brig was out, our midshipman had another narrow escape from death, having, together with several others, been struck senseless by lightning during a severe thunder storm.
Barry made the capture just mentioned near the end of his cruise, and he soon after went into Philadelphia, which place Dale now saw for the first time. Here Barry left the Lexington to take command of the Effingham 28, a ship that never got to sea, leaving our new midshipman in the brig. Capt. Hallock was Barry’s successor, and he soon rated Dale, by this time an active and skilful seaman, a master’s mate. Early in the autumn, the Lexington sailed for Cape François, on special duty. On her return, in the month of December, she fell in with the Pearl frigate,[[1]] and was captured without resistance, carrying an armament of only a few fours.
As it was blowing very fresh at the moment this capture was made, the Pearl took out of the prize four or five officers, threw a small crew on board, and directed the brig to follow her. By some accounts Dale was left in the Lexington, while by others he was not. A succinct history of the events of his life, written by a connection under his own eye, and which is now before us, gives the latter version of the affair, and is probably the true one. At all events, the remaining officers and crew of the Lexington rose upon the captors in the course of the night, retook the brig, and carried her into Baltimore.[[2]]