Eluding the British blockade off Rochefort, the squadron sailed southwards until it reached the coast of West Africa.

There Landolphe's ships began an extended commerce raiding operation, inflicting severe damage on the West African trade for the rest of the year.

[1] Eventually the strain of serving in tropical waters told on the ships and all three were forced to undergo an extensive refit in the nearest available allied shipyards, which were located in the Spanish-held River Plate in South America.

At Montevideo the squadron assisted the French prisoners that had captured and taken into that port the convict transport Lady Shore, which was carrying them to Australia.

The squadron almost immediately captured off the coast of Brazil the American schooner Espérance (Hope), which they used as an aviso and sent to Cayenne with a prize crew under the command of enseigne de vaisseau Hamon.

On 9 August Franchise encountered the merchantman Wellesley, which was on her way to the Cape, but after an engagement of about an hour, the British ship succeeded in driving off her attacker.

[a] Because she had been with Admiral William Cornwallis's fleet, Minotaur had to share the prize money not only with Thunderer and Albion, but also with Aigle, Culloden, Dreadnought, Hazard, Sceptre, Venerable, and possibly others.

[13] With the resumption of the war Admiral James Dacres was appointed second in command on the Jamaica station, serving under Sir John Thomas Duckworth and flying his flag in the Franchise.

On the night of 6 January Franchise arrived some five leagues off the town of Campeche and Dashwood had her anchor in four fathoms as the water was too shallow to come any closer.

Because of the distance they had to row, the British were unable to approach closely until 4am, by which time the moon had risen, they had been spotted, and the Spaniards alerted.

After about ten minutes of hand-to-hand fighting, the British had captured her and were sailing her out, pursued by the other Spanish vessels, which continued to fire on them.

[29][30] Douglas served in the boats at the capture of Carmen, and on board that ship he succeeded in making two prizes, and in driving an armed vessel on shore.

In December 1807 prize money was announced for "Proceeds of a Quantity of Cocoa, captured in sundry small Spanish Vessels, Names unknown, on the 19th of June.

Franchise had lost her fore mast and main-top-mast but Dashwood was still able to rally the surviving merchantmen and bring them back to England.

Two days later she was 12 leagues south of the Isles of Scilly when she sighted a French lugger privateer hovering around the convoy that Franchise was escorting.

The captains got together and decided to capture the town and port of Samaná in order to assist the Spanish patriots that had established a blockade of San Domingo.

The town was also the last port of refuge for privateers to the windward of San Domingo and the enemy were in the act of erecting batteries for its protection.

Captain Charles Dashwood handed Samana over to a Spanish officer, Don Diego de Lira, who guaranteed the safety of the French inhabitants on their plantations.

[36] Early the next year, on 16 January 1809, Franchise captured the French letter of marque Iphigenie after a chase of 30 hours.

She and her crew of 26 were sailing from Bayonne, where she had been launched two months earlier, to Guadeloupe with a cargo of naval stores and provisions, with the intent of taking up privateering once in the West Indies.

Dashwood, in the hope that the navy might buy her, described Iphigenie as "... coppered, and sails remarkably fast, having been pursued several Times during her Passage".

On 2 February she was in the bay of Cagliari where she captured the French privateer Aventurier (or Venturier), pierced for 14 guns but only mounting three.

[13] On 26 September, Blake and Franchise provided naval support to a land attack, at night, on Tarragona by troops under the command of General Joaquín Ibáñez Cuevas, Baron d'Eroles.

Captain Edward Codrington, of Blake, wrote to Baron d'Eroles and to Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, that the officers and crew declined any prize money from the action, in favour of the Spanish troops, "in admiration of the valour and the discipline which they shewed upon the occasion.