1st voyage transporting enslaved people (1782–1783): Captain Daniel Deslands sailed from Saint-Malo on 31 December 1782.

2nd voyage transporting enslaved people (1789–1790): On 15 June 1789, Captain Toussaint Le Forestier sailed from Saint-Malo.

A 1793 prospectus from her owners advertised her as having "steel sheathing", which Demerliac conjectures might have been an armour belt at her waterline.

[4] On her first cruise in 1793 under Captain Dufresne Le Gué,[a] she captured two merchant vessels, Bonne Espérence and the 520 ton (bm) Albemarle of London.

[4][6][7] On her second cruise as a privateer, in the winter of 1797, Duguay-Trouin was under the command of Captain Nicholas Legué and had a crew of 172 men.