The ship was laid down in 1790 as a speculative build by the shipwright Henry Adams and purchased by the Royal Navy in June of the same year.

Built to the dimensions of a merchant ship, Beaulieu was broader, with more storage capacity, than a standard frigate; though may not have had good sailing qualities.

This meant that her hold space was much greater than the average frigate, providing the capacity to store around double the amount of drinking water and ballast.

[a] While no official report on Beaulieu's sailing survives, her unusual proportions have led the naval historian Robert Gardiner to suggest that it is "unlikely she was much of a sailer".

[10][16] Beaulieu's upper deck had fifteen gun ports on each side, but only fourteen of these were ever put into regular use, with the final pair briefly holding the 1793 carronades but otherwise being left empty.

[17] Beaulieu was commissioned in January 1793 by Captain Lord Northesk, under whom she sailed to serve on the Leeward Islands Station on 22 April.

[10][20] Jervis was undertaking a campaign to capture the valuable French-held islands in the West Indies, which accounted for a third of all French trade and supported (directly or indirectly) a fifth of the population.

They arrived on 5 February and by 16 March all but two fortifications on the island had been successfully captured by the landing forces; seamen were used to move and operate gun batteries and mortars in the fighting.

[31] Beaulieu spent her time in North America patrolling off the coast of Virginia, before returning to the Leeward Islands, where she captured the French privateer schooner Spartiate on 14 April 1795.

[10][30] Also under Riou, at an unknown date, Beaulieu encountered a French 18-gun store ship that had grounded herself earlier in the day under the protection of a battery near Saint-François.

Towards the end of April the frigate was sent to support landings at Anse La Raye, but these were called off because of bad sea conditions.

On 3 May the ship supported an attack by three columns of soldiers against two French batteries, but the endeavour was unsuccessful, and Beaulieu had three men wounded and her foremast damaged.

[45][46][47] The two ships attempted to send petitioners to the Admiralty in London, demanding the removal of unpopular officers and a decrease in the use of flogging, but soldiers posted at Rochester blocked their route on 31 May.

[45][49] Having sailed from the Nore, despite the authorities removing the marker buoys to make navigation out of the anchorage more difficult, off Margate on 11 June the mutinous members of Beaulieu were overpowered.

The defenders shot at them again, hitting two, and the survivors ran to Beaulieu's forecastle where they started turning her 9-pounders around to point back into the ship.

[72] After the battle bad sea conditions meant that many damaged warships were struggling to stay away from the shore, and Beaulieu was sent by Duncan to search out and assist any distressed ships that she could find.

Endymion sailed back towards Duncan's fleet firing rockets to attract attention, and at 10:30 p.m. on 13 October these were spotted by Beaulieu.

[77] On 1 June 1799 Fayerman sailed Beaulieu to the Mediterranean Sea, but by 10 August the ship had returned to home waters, serving in the English Channel.

[87] Sailing off Pointe Saint-Mathieu, the squadron discovered that the French 20-gun corvette Chevrette was at anchor in the nearby Camaret Bay, under the cover of a shore battery.

The British decided to make an attempt to capture the corvette, and Admiral William Cornwallis sent out Lieutenant Woodley Losack from his flagship to undertake the cutting out expedition.

With volunteer boat crews from Beaulieu and Doris under his command (Uranie having left the station), Losack set out on 20 July for Chevrette.

Unaware of this, the remaining boats waited until the morning of 21 July for the others, at which point the daylight revealed them to Chevrette, which began to prepare to defend herself.

[88][89] Chevrette sailed a mile closer to Brest, taking advantage of the protection of more gun batteries on shore, and brought on board a group of soldiers that increased her complement to 339 men.

Some time later in the day Uranie returned to the squadron and she added her manpower to the expedition, alongside that of two boats from the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Robust.

With the element of surprise provided by the night dwindling as time went on, the senior officer of the remaining boats, Lieutenant Keith Maxwell of Beaulieu, continued the journey without Losack.

A quartermaster from Beaulieu took control of the helm, and the remaining French defenders chose to either jump overboard or run below into the ship.

In the battle the British had lost eleven men killed, with a further fifty-seven wounded and one drowned when one of Beaulieu's boats was sunk by Chevrette.

[99] The historian Noel Mostert describes the event, with its high casualties and zeal demonstrated by the British in pushing forwards with an attack that the French were fully prepared for, as "an episode without parallel".

[100] The letter published in the London Gazette outlining the action named Losack as the commander, and Maxwell wrote to Cornwallis explaining the unfairness of the situation.

The admiral held a court of enquiry on board the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Mars to investigate Losack's conduct on 9 August.