From about 1588 to 1609, Thomas Dale was in the service of the Low Countries (the Netherlands and parts of modern Belgium) with the English army originally under Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

While Dale was still serving in the Low Countries, on the recommendation of the eldest son of King James, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the States-General of the United Netherlands consented "that Captain Thomas Dale (destined by the King of Great Britain to be employed in Virginia in his Majesty's service) may absent himself from his company for the space of three years, and that his said company shall remain meanwhile vacant, to be resumed by him if he think proper."

Not only did food production increase markedly, but the following year John Rolfe succeeded on his plot in raising the first hybrid tobacco − the key to the colony's future.

In 1614, Governor Thomas Dale sent 20 men, under Lieutenant William Craddock, to the area across the Chesapeake Bay from mainland Virginia now known as the Eastern Shore to establish a salt works and to catch fish for the colonists.

They settled along Old Plantation Creek at a place named "Dale's Gift" on the mainland, but they established the salt works on Smith Island, which is located adjacent to the southern portion of the Eastern Shore in present-day Northampton County near Cape Charles.

However, soon after leaving London, as John Rolfe and his wife sailed down the Thames River, Rebecca became very ill and died on 21 March 1617 before returning to Virginia.

[7] In 1618, Dale was appointed commander of a squadron of six ships, which the East India Company sent out in April to maintain their interests against the aggressive policy of the Dutch and for the relief of Nathaniel Courthope, who was reportedly beleaguered on the island of Run.

[8] After a sharp action, he put it to flight and laid siege to the Dutch fort at Jacatra, in the swamps around which he seems to have contracted the sickness of which, in the course of the following summer, he died at Masulipatnam in India.