Governor Dale was a soldier; entering the army in the Netherlands as
a private he had risen to high position, and received knighthood in
1606. Shortly after he was with Sir Thomas Gates in South Holland.
The States General in 1611 granted him three years' term of absence
in Virginia. Upon his arrival he began to put in force that system
of industry and frugality he had observed in Holland. He had all the
imperiousness of a soldier, and in an altercation with Captain
Newport, occasioned by some injurious remarks the latter made about
Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer, he pulled his beard and threatened
to hang him. Active operations for settling new plantations were at
once begun, and Dale wrote to Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury, for 2,000
good colonists to be sent out, for the three hundred that came were
"so profane, so riotous, so full of mutiny, that not many are
Christians but in name, their bodies so diseased and crazed that not
sixty of them may be employed." He served afterwards with credit in
Holland, was made commander of the East Indian fleet in 1618, had a
naval engagement with the Dutch near Bantam in 1619, and died in 1620
from the effects of the climate. He was twice married, and his
second wife, Lady Fanny, the cousin of his first wife, survived him
and received a patent for a Virginia plantation.

Governor Dale kept steadily in view the conversion of the Indians to
Christianity, and the success of John Rolfe with Matoaka inspired him
with a desire to convert another daughter of Powhatan, of whose
exquisite perfections he had heard. He therefore despatched Ralph
Hamor, with the English boy, Thomas Savage, as interpreter, on a
mission to the court of Powhatan, "upon a message unto him, which was
to deale with him, if by any means I might procure a daughter of his,
who (Pocahuntas being already in our possession) is generally
reported to be his delight and darling, and surely he esteemed her as