She was nonetheless built in a broadly European style, with iron fastenings and copper sheathing, rigged as a three-masted ship, and although not primarily a warship, she was armed with broadsides of up to ten pairs of 12-pounder long guns, and could carry a crew as large as 160 men.

[2] The ship is described as a very good sailor, able to keep pace with the brig-rigged French corvette Entreprenant, which in turn could comfortably outperform most frigates.

[5] In early 1809 she brought George Baring, the British East India Company's Commission Agent in China, to Calcutta from Macau, together with his family.

[6][7] On 10 March 1803, she set sail for her return to Macau, reportedly with "a cargo to the enormous value of fourteen lacs of rupees", and joined an eastbound convoy of British ships under the escort of HMS Samarang.

However, she was almost immediately seen by the French corvette Entreprenant, under the command of Lieutenant de vaisseau Pierre Bouvet, which was anchored off Aur Island, a fast-sailing brig with a powerful broadside of long 12-pounders.

[12] The Portuguese ship surrendered after the first broadside and Bouvet spent the night and the first part of the next day shifting half of her bullion cargo aboard the Entreprenant, to maximise the odds of returning at least part of the treasure to French territory; the two ships made their careful way into the straits through the southern channel behind Pedra Branca, and watched the Dedaigneuse and the rest of the convoy sail past a few miles to their north.

[13] At the request of the masters and crew of Ovidor Pereira and Mary, another ship that Bouvet had captured, he put them on shore at Dutch-controlled Madura Island.

[14] The Ouvidor was placed under the command of Ensigne de vaisseau Vielch, and parted company from Entreprenant, with the two ships agreeing to make a mid-ocean rendezvous at the remote island of St. Brandon; Ouvidor arrived there in early December, to find Entreprenant shaking off two Royal Navy frigates, and together, the two ships ran the Royal Navy close blockade to arrive at Île de France.

[17] Whatever the precise date of her departure, she arrived at the Cape on 11 October, bringing 330 British prisoners-of-war, and after a protracted replenishment, set sail for the return voyage to Île de France on 4 December;[18] thus she set sail too late to be caught in the British invasion of Île de France in December, and instead arrived at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime in early 1811.

[19] On 2 March 1812 she was recommissioned, with her name being mis-recorded as Généreuse,[1] now formally classified as a gabarre, a term used in the French for armed transports with relatively simple deck arrangements, for example lacking an orlop and/or quarterdeck.

[20] She was rebuilt in Rochefort from June 1813 to September 1814[16] In August 1814 she was renamed Loire and promoted to the flûte classification, used for transports with more frigate-like deck arrangements.