As more men were soon sent from the Bon Homme Richard, the two ships were now separated, the Richard making sail, and Jones ordering Dale to follow with the prize. A sense of fatigue had come over the latter, in consequence of the reaction of so much excitement and so great exertions, and he took a seat on the binnacle. Here he issued an order to brace the head yards aback, and to put the helm down. Wondering that the ship did not pay off, he directed that the wheel-ropes should be examined. It was reported that they were not injured, and that the helm was hard down. Astonished to find the ship immovable under such circumstances, there being a light breeze, Dale sprang upon his feet, and then discovered, for the first time, that he had been severely wounded, by a splinter, in the foot and ankle. The hurt, now that he was no longer sustained by the excitement of battle, deprived him of the use of his leg, and he fell. Just at this moment, Mr. Lunt, the officer who had been absent in the pilot-boat, reached the Richard, and Dale was forced to give up to him the command of the prize. The cause of the Serapis’ not minding her helm was the fact that Capt. Pierson had dropped an anchor under foot when the two ships got foul; a circumstance of which the Americans were ignorant until this moment.
Dale was some time laid up with his wound, but he remained with Jones in his old station of first lieutenant, accompanying that officer, in the Alliance, from the Texel to l’Orient. In the controversy which ensued between the commodore and Landais, our lieutenant took sides warmly with the first, and even offered to head a party to recover the Alliance, by force. This measure not being resorted to, he remained with Jones, and finally sailed with him for America, as his first lieutenant, in the Ariel 20, a ship lent to the Americans, by the King of France.
The Ariel quitted port in October, 1780, but encountered a tremendous gale of wind off the Penmarks. Losing her masts, she was compelled to return to refit. On this occasion Dale, in his responsible situation of first lieutenant, showed all the coolness of his character, and the resources of a thorough seaman. The tempest was almost a hurricane, and of extraordinary violence. The Ariel sailed a second time about the commencement of the year 1781, and reached Philadelphia on the 18th February. During the passage home, she had a short action, in the night, with a heavy British letter-of-marque, that gave her name as the Triumph; and which ship is said to have struck, but to have made her escape by treachery. Jones, who was greedy of glory, even fancied that his enemy was a vessel of war, and that he had captured a vessel of at least equal force. This was not Dale’s impression. He spoke of the affair to the writer of this article, as one of no great moment, even questioning whether their antagonist struck at all; giving it as his belief she was a quick-working and fast-sailing letter-of-marque. He distinctly stated that she got off by out-manœuvring the Ariel, which vessel was badly manned, and had an exceedingly mixed and disaffected crew. It is worthy of remark that, while two articles, enumerating the services of Dale, have been written by gentlemen connected with himself, and possessing his confidence, neither mentions this affair; a proof, in itself, that Dale considered it one of little moment.
The account which Dale always gave of the meeting between the Ariel and Triumph—admitting such to have been the name of the English ship—so different from that which has found its way into various publications, on the representation of other actors in that affair, is illustrative of the character of the man. Simple of mind, totally without exaggeration, and a lover, as well as a practicer, of severe truth, he was a man whose representations might be fully relied on. Even in his account of the extraordinary combat between the Richard and Serapis, he stripped the affair of all its romance, and of every thing that was wonderful; rendering the whole clear, simple and intelligible as his own thoughts. The only narratives of that battle, worthy of a seaman, have been written rigidly after his explanations, which leave it a bloody and murderous fight, but one wholly without the marvelous.
On his arrival at Philadelphia, after an absence of four years, more than one of which had been spent in prison, Dale was just twenty-four years and two months old. He was now regularly put on the list of lieutenants, by the marine committee of Congress; his former authority proceeding from the agents of the government in Europe. It is owing to this circumstance that the register of government places him so low as a lieutenant. Dale now parted from Paul Jones, with whom he had served near two years; and that, too, in some of the most trying scenes of the latter’s life. The commodore was anxious to take his favorite lieutenant with him to the America 74; but the latter declined the service, under the impression it would be a long time before the ship got to sea. He judged right, the America being transferred to the French in the end, and Jones himself never again sailing under the American flag.
The name of Dale will inseparably be connected with the battle of the Richard and Serapis. His prominent position and excellent conduct entitle him to this mark of distinction, and it says much for the superior, when it confers fame to have been “Paul Jones’ first lieutenant.” We smile, however, at the legends of the day, when we recall the account of the “Lieutenants Grubb” and other heroes of romance, who have been made to figure in the histories of that renowned combat, and place them in contrast with the truth-loving, sincere, moral and respectable subject of this memoir. The sword which Louis XVI. bestowed on Jones, for this victory, passed into the hands of Dale, and is now the property of a gallant son, a fitting mark of the services of the father, on the glorious occasion it commemorates.[[4]]
Dale was employed on board a schooner that was manned from the Ariel, after reaching Philadelphia, and sent down the Delaware to convoy certain public stores. The following June, he joined the Trumbull 28, Captain Nicholson, as her first lieutenant. The Trumbull left the capes of the Delaware on the 8th August, 1781, being chased off the land by three of the enemy’s cruisers. The weather was squally and night set in dark. In endeavoring to avoid her pursuers, the Trumbull found herself alongside of the largest, a frigate of thirty-two guns, and an action was fought under the most unfavorable circumstances. The Trumbull’s fore-topmast was hanging over, or rather through her forecastle, her crew was disorganized, and the vessel herself in a state of no preparation for a conflict with an equal force; much less with that actually opposed to her. The officers made great exertions, and maintained an action of more than an hour, when the colors of the American ship were struck to the Iris 32, and Monk 18. The former of these vessels had been the American frigate Hancock, and the latter was subsequently captured in the Delaware, by Barney in the Hyder Ally.
This was the fourth serious affair in which Dale had been engaged that war, and the fourth time he had been captured. As he was hurt also in this battle, it made the third of his wounds. His confinement, however, was short, and the treatment not a subject of complaint. He was taken into New York, paroled on Long Island, and exchanged in November.
No new service offering in a marine which, by this time, had lost most of its ships, Dale obtained a furlough, and joined a large letter-of-marque called the Queen of France, that carried twelve guns, as her first officer. Soon after he was appointed to the command of the same vessel. In the spring of 1782, this ship, in company with several other letters-of-marque, sailed for France, making many captures by the way. The ship of Dale, however, parted from the fleet, and, falling in with an English privateer of fourteen guns, a severe engagement followed, in which both parties were much cut up; they parted by mutual consent. Dale did not get back to Philadelphia until February of the succeeding year, or until about the time that peace was made.
In common with most of the officers of the navy, Lieutenant Dale was disbanded, as soon as the war ceased. He was now in the twenty-seventh year of his age, with a perfect knowledge of his profession, in which he had passed more than half his life, a high reputation for his rank, a courage that had often been tried, a body well scarred, a character beyond reproach, and not altogether without “money in his purse.” Under the circumstances, he naturally determined to follow up his fortunes in the line in which he had commenced his career. He became part owner of a large ship, and sailed in her for London, December, 1783, in the station of master. After this, he embarked successfully in the East India trade, in the same character, commanding several of the finest ships out of the country. In this manner he accumulated a respectable fortune, and began to take his place among the worthies of the land in a new character.