The mode in which this second escape was made is known, but the manner by which he procured the means he refused to his dying day to disclose. At all events, he obtained a full suit of British uniform, attired in which, and seizing a favorable moment, he boldly walked past all the sentinels, and got off. That some one was connected with his escape who might suffer by his revelations is almost certain; and it is a trait in his character worthy of notice, that he kept this secret, with scrupulous fidelity, for forty-seven years. It is not known that he ever divulged it even to any individual of his own family.
Rendered wary by experience, Dale now proceeded with great address and caution. He probably had money, as well as clothes. At all events, he went to London, found means to procure a passport, and left the country for France, unsuspected and undetected. On reaching a friendly soil, he hastened to l’Orient, and joined the force then equipping under Paul Jones, in his old rank of a master’s mate. Here he was actively employed for some months, affording the commodore an opportunity to ascertain his true merits, when they met with something like their just reward. As Dale was now near twenty-three, and an accomplished seaman, Jones, after trying several less competent persons, procured a commission for him from the commissioners, and made him the first lieutenant of his own ship, the justly celebrated Bon Homme Richard.
It is not our intention, in this article, to enter any farther into the incidents of this well known cruise, than is necessary to complete the present subject. Dale does not appear in any prominent situation, though always discharging the duties of his responsible station, with skill and credit, until the squadron appeared off Leith, with the intention of seizing that town—the port of Edinburgh—and of laying it under contribution. On this occasion, our lieutenant was selected to command the boats that were to land, a high compliment to so young a man, as coming from one of the character of Paul Jones. Every thing was ready, Dale had received his final orders, and was in the very act of proceeding to the ship’s side to enter his boat, when a heavy squall struck the vessels, and induced an order for the men to come on deck, and assist in shortening sail. The vessels were compelled to bear up before it, to save their spars; this carried them out of the firth; and, a gale succeeding, the enterprise was necessarily abandoned. This gale proved so heavy, that one of the prizes actually foundered.
This attempt of Jones, while it is admitted to have greatly alarmed the coast, has often been pronounced rash and inconsiderate. Such was not the opinion of Dale. A man of singular moderation in his modes of thinking, and totally without bravado, it was his conviction that the effort would have been crowned with success. He assured the writer, years after the occurrence, that he was about to embark in the expedition with feelings of high confidence, and that he believed nothing but the inopportune intervention of the squall stood between Jones and a triumphant coup de main.
A few days later, Jones made a secret proposal to his officers, which some affirm was to burn the shipping at North Shields, but which the commanders of two of his vessels strenuously opposed, in consequence of which the project was abandoned. The commodore himself, in speaking of the manner in which this and other similar propositions were received by his subordinates, extolled the ardor invariably manifested by the young men, among whom Dale was one of the foremost. Had it rested with them, the attempts at least would all have been made.
On the 19th September occurred the celebrated battle between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard. As the proper place to enter fully into the details of that murderous combat will be in the biography of Jones, we shall confine ourselves at present to incidents with which the subject of this memoir was more immediately connected.
The Bon Homme Richard had finally sailed on this cruise with only two proper sea-lieutenants on board her. There was a third officer of the name of Lunt, who has been indifferently called a lieutenant and the sailing-master, but who properly filled the latter station. This gentleman had separated from the ship in a fog, on the coast of Ireland, while in the pursuit of some deserters, and never rejoined the squadron. Another person of the same name, and believed to be the brother of the master, was the second lieutenant. He was sent in a pilot-boat, accompanied by a midshipman and several men, to capture a vessel in sight, before Jones made the Baltic fleet coming round Flamborough Head. This party was not able to return to the Bon Homme Richard, until after the battle had terminated. In consequence of these two circumstances, each so novel in itself, the American frigate fought this bloody and arduous combat with only one officer on board her, of the rank of a sea-lieutenant, who was Dale. This is the reason why the latter is so often mentioned as the lieutenant of the Bon Homme Richard, during that memorable fight. The fact rendered his duties more arduous and diversified, and entitles him to the greater credit for their proper performance.
Dale was stationed on the gun-deck, where of course he commanded in chief, though it appears that his proper personal division was the forward guns. Until the ships got foul of each other, this brought him particularly into the hottest of the work; the Serapis keeping much on the bows, or ahead of the Bon Homme Richard. It is known that Jones was much pleased with his deportment, which, in truth, was every way worthy of his own. When the alarm was given that the ship was sinking, Dale went below himself to ascertain the real state of the water, and his confident and fearless report cheered the men to renewed exertions. Shortly after, the supply of powder was stopped, when our lieutenant again quitted his quarters to inquire into the cause. On reaching the magazine passage he was told by the sentinels that they had closed the ingress, on account of a great number of strange and foreign faces that they saw around them. On further inquiry, Dale discovered that the master at arms, of his own head, had let loose all the prisoners—more than a hundred in number—under the belief that the ship was sinking. Dale soon saw the danger which might ensue, but finding the English much alarmed at the supposed condition of the ship, he succeeded in mustering them, and setting them at work at the pumps, where, by their exertions, they probably prevented the apprehended calamity. For some time, at the close of the action, all his guns being rendered useless, Dale was employed principally in this important service. There is no question that without some such succor, the Richard would have gone down much earlier than she did. It is a singular feature of this every-way extraordinary battle, that here were Englishmen, zealously employed in aiding the efforts of their enemies, under the cool control of a collected and observant officer.
At length the cheerful intelligence was received that the enemy had struck. Dale went on deck, and immediately demanded Jones’ permission to take possession of the prize. It was granted, and had he never manifested any other act of personal intrepidity, his promptitude on this occasion, and the manner in which he went to work, to attain his purpose, would have shown him to be a man above personal considerations, when duty or honor pointed out his course. The main-yard of the Serapis was hanging a-cock-bill, over the side of the American ship. The brace was shot away, and the pendant hung within reach. Seizing the latter, Dale literally swung himself off, and alighted alone on the quarter-deck of the Serapis. Here he found no one but the brave Pierson, who had struck his own flag; but the men below were still ignorant of the act. We may form an opinion of the risk that the young man ran, in thus boarding his enemy at night, and in the confusion of such a combat, for the English were still firing below, by the fact that Mr. Mayrant, a young man of South Carolina, and a midshipman of the Bon Homme Richard, who led a party after the lieutenant, was actually run through the thigh by a boarding pike, and by the hands of a man in the waist below.
The first act of Dale, on getting on the quarter deck of the Serapis, was to direct her captain to go on board the American ship. While thus employed, the English first lieutenant came up from below, and finding that the Americans had ceased their fire, he demanded if they had struck. “No, sir,” answered Dale, “it is this ship that has struck, and you are my prisoner.” An appeal to Capt. Pierson confirming this, the English lieutenant offered to go below and silence the remaining guns of the Serapis. To this Dale objected, and had both the officers passed on board the Bon Homme Richard. In a short time, the English below were sent from their guns, and full possession was obtained of the prize.