A French frigate captured her in 1782 but the Royal Navy recaptured her in 1783 and took her back into service.

At least one source conjectures that she was the French privateer Chasseur, built 1781 at Bordeaux,[1] but this is highly implausible, given that the records of the Royal Navy show it purchasing Chaser on 1 January 1781.

Also, one source on French naval vessels, which Chaser briefly became, makes no mention of such an origin.

Chaser was carrying dispatches that revealed that the French fleet under Admiral Pierre André de Suffren had returned to the Coromandel coast while Admiral Sir Edward Hughes was still refitting at Bombay.

[9] Lieutenant Edward Buller was promoted to Commander into Chaser and recommissioned her in April 1783.

In November Chaser was caught in a terrible hurricane on the Coromandel Coast and it was widely expected that she would have foundered.

However, Buller knew the waters and sailed her into the Gulf of Mannar, where she was able to ride out the hurricane.

[10] Shortly after the encounter with the hurricane, Buller sailed a battered Chaser for England.

[13] 2nd southern whale voyage (1792–1794): On 24 October 1792 Chaser, Clark(e), master, sailed for the South Seas from the Downs, bound for the Pacific Ocean.

[16] He returned and in June 1794 Lloyd's List reported that Chacer had been at St Helena.

[13] Captain Clark decided to return to London by sailing around Great Britain and coming down from the north to avoid the encountering a privateer in the Channel.

[13] Chaser, Downs, master, sailed from Gravesend on 13 April 1795, bound for Honduras.