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.