When all was ready, Capt. Johnston, most of his officers, and several of his crew, or, as many as were in the secret, passed through the hole, and escaped. This was in February, 1778. The party wandered about the country in company, and by night, for more than a week; suffering all sorts of privations, until it was resolved to take the wiser course of separating. Dale, accompanied by one other, found his way to London, hotly pursued. At one time the two lay concealed under some straw in an out-house, while the premises were searched by those who were in quest of them. On reaching London, Dale and his companion immediately got on board a vessel about to sail for Dunkirk. A press-gang unluckily took this craft in its rounds, and suspecting the true objects of the fugitives, they were arrested, and, their characters being ascertained, they were sent back to Mill Prison in disgrace. This was the commencement of a captivity far more tedious than the former. In the first place they were condemned to forty days’ confinement in the black hole, as the punishment for the late escape; and, released from this durance, they were deprived of many of their former indulgences. Dale himself took his revenge in singing “rebel songs,” and paid a second visit to the black hole, as the penalty. This state of things, with alternations of favor and punishment, continued quite a year, when Dale, singly, succeeded in again effecting his great object of getting free. 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.