In 1787 she carried emigrants to Sierra Leone for the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, before returning to trading with Honduras.

Belisarius was under the command of Captain James Munro,[1] when HMS Medea captured her on 7 August 1781,[2] off the Delaware River.

The Royal Navy purchased Belisarius and commissioned her as the sixth rate HMS Bellisarius on 29 August 1781 under Captain Richard Graves.

[5] On 12 May Bellisarius captured the privateer Chance,[6] of Providence, Rhode Island, Daniel Ahorn, master, and 12 guns and 60 men.

On 18 May Bellisarius captured the privateer Sampson,[6] Captain David Brooks, of New London, and eighteen 6-pounder guns and 130 men.

[7] Tartar was a privateer of twenty 9-pounder guns, under the command of Captain John Cathcart; earlier, she had belonged to the Massachusetts Navy.

Tartar was sailing for Virginia and in company with another Massachusetts privateer, Alexander, Captain John Foster Williams, when they encountered Bellisarius.

Bellisarius put a prize crew aboard Tartar and the two vessels arrived at New York city on 28 February.

Atlantic, Bellisarius, and Vernon, Gill, master, sailed from Portsmouth on 23 February under escort by the sloop-of-war HMS Nautilous.

[10] The four vessels were reported to have been safe at Tenerife on 24 April, and had been expected to sail to Sierra Leone that night.

On 2 September 1787 Bellisarius was driven ashore during a hurricane and wrecked at the mouth of the Belize River, British Honduras.