[2] He joined the Royal Navy in around 1790 as a midshipman, served aboard the frigate Circe, and saw action during the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797.

On 4 May 1805, Boyle sighted a convoy of Spanish ships loaded with gunpowder at San Pedro, an anchorage east of Cape de Gata.

They were the Badere-Zaffer, a large frigate armed with fifty-two guns, mainly 12 and 24-pounders, but also two 42-pounders, and with a complement of 500 men under the command of Captain Scanderli Kichuc Ali.

In August 1814 he was appointed to Confiance, flagship of the British squadron on Lake Champlain, taking command of her on 3 September.

The crew of Confiance consisted of 270 men; 86 Marines, artillerymen and soldiers, and the rest "volunteers" from ships at Quebec who were of inferior quality and bad character, several having been in irons.

A 24-pound cannon from the captured Confiance, the same gun responsible for the death of Downie, can be found today on display in front of Macdonough Hall at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.