[1] He served as Midshipman to Captain Peter Warren aboard the Squirrel off the coast of North America when he was in his twenties and thereafter in the West Indies under Commodore Knowles who promoted him to command the storeship Bien Aimé on 12 August 1744.

[2] He was based in Boston in July 1745 again under Commodore Peter Warren when he was placed in command of the Mermaid and also in charge of a convoy returning to England in March 1746.

We was then without a ship and on half pay until he was given the command of and commissioned the Antelope in May 1756, transferring to the Royal Anne guardship based in Spithead in August of the same year.

The St George returned to Europe at the end of 1759 and remained there attached to the Grand Fleet in the Bay of Biscay until the declaration of peace.

When stationed in Boston he married a colonist and citizen of Boston, Judith Rawlins (10 October 1714 – 1774, daughter of Captain John Rawlins (shipmaster) and Love Prout), by whom he had one son, George Clark Gayton (1751–1800), and after her death, Elizabeth Legge, relative of the Earl of Dartmouth.