Richard Dale
Note: In 1695, an old mill at Millbay was converted for use as a prison. From the Seven Years War (1756-1763) until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Mill Prison was used to house prisoners of war, primarily from France, America, and Denmark.
Richard Dale was born in Virginia in 1756. In 1776, he was made a midshipman on board the Lexington. The following year, he was taken by the enemy and sent to the celebrated Mill Prison in England. At the end of a year, he escaped to France, joined Paul Jones on board the American armed ship Bon Homme Richard, and was made First Lieutenant. He was in desperate action with the British frigate Serapis. In 1794, he became a captain in the United States Navy. In 1801, he was put in command of the American squadron that sailed to the Mediterranean and humbled the insolent Bashaw of Tripoli by battering down his caste. On his return in 1802, he was located in Philadelphia, where he lived until he died in 1826.