[3] War with France having broken out in 1793, Captain Thomas Palmer Acland acquired a letter of marque on 21 February 1795.

[3] She had sailed with a convoy of Indiamen that were bringing General Alured Clarke and his troops for the invasion of the Cape Colony.

[5] The 14 vessels of the convoy arrived at Simon's Bay on 4 September,[6] and at the Cape of Good Hope on 1 October.

Many seamen of the Indiamen volunteered for duty on shore as soldiers or manning guns, some under Acland's command.

Captain James Ludovic Grant sailed from Portsmouth on 17 March 1800, bound for Madras and China.

[9] In February Brunswick took aboard Colonel Hatton and 350 officers and men of the 1st Battalion of the 66th Regiment of Foot to carry them to Ceylon.

She was 28 days out from Isle de France (Mauritius), with a cargo of old muskets and other goods that she was intending to trade for slaves.

The next day the 66th Regiment disembarked, and Brunswick lost three more crew members who deserted to join HMS Sheerness.

Brunswick sailed for China on 13 August as part of a convoy that included Canton and Marquis of Ely, and five country ships.

There it joined with several more vessels that formed a fleet of five warships (including the 74-gun HMS Russell), seven East Indiamen, and ten country ships.

[10] Shortly after leaving Penang on 28 January, Brunswick became leaky and sailed to Bombay for repairs rather than going on to the Cape.

At Bombay she underwent repairs while her cargo transshipped with two other homeward bound Indiamen, Experiment and Skelton Castle.

They were cruising to raid British commerce, and from the former prisoners Linois learned of Brunswick's imminent departure and probable route.

[10] Brunswick, Sarah, and the two country ships Cambrian and James Drummond sailed from Bombay on 1 July 1805, bound for China.

[10] Grant had no choice but to strike; it would have been wasteful with lives for an undermanned East Indiaman such as Brunswick to engage in combat with a 74-gun ship of the line.

He left her doctor to tend to the Chinese and lascars, and the fourth officer to command them, all under the oversight and control of a French prize crew.

[10] At the same time as Marengo was taking control of Brunswick, Belle Poule set out to capture Sarah, which was further to windward.

On 7 August Marengo and Belle Poule met a British convoy of Indiamen bound for Madras under the escort of HMS Blenheim, under the command of Rear-admiral Thomas Troubridge.

[10] Both sides broke off the engagement and Linois sailed to St Augustine's Bay, Madagascar, hoping to find Brunswick there.

[10] On 1 November the 32 officers and crew from Brunswick went on board Eliza, an American ship under the command of Captain Chase.

[a] Phaeton was also carrying the Marquis of Wellesley and his suite, who was returning to England after having served as Governor General of India.