On 11 September 1779, whilst the Ariel was cruising off Charles Town under Captain Thomas Mackenzie, she sighted a strange sail and approached to investigate, unaware that a French fleet under the Admiral comte d'Estaing had entered the theatre from the West Indies.

As Mackenzie got closer he realized that the stranger was actually a frigate, accompanied by two brigs and a schooner, and that she was not responding to his signals, he had to retreat for the Georgia shore.

[1] After a ninety-minute flight in which lost her mizzen-mast and all her rigging and sustained casualties of four men dead and another 20 wounded, Mackenzie surrendered Ariel.

[2] d'Estaing immediately exchanged the crew of Ariel and Experiment, which he had captured the year before, for French prisoners.

[4] The French lent her to the American Continental Navy in October, where she served briefly as USS Ariel under John Paul Jones.