Castor eventually saw service in many of the theatres of the wars, spending time in the waters off the British Isles, in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as the Caribbean.

[1] Castor spent nearly five years in ordinary until the Spanish Armament of 1790 caused her to be fitted out at Chatham between June and August 1790 for the sum of £2,795.

[3] The rising tensions with France immediately prior to the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars led the Admiralty to again prepare Castor for active service.

While Castor was escorting a convoy back to Britain, on 9 May 1794 a French squadron under Rear-Admiral Joseph-Marie Nielly chased and captured her off Cape Clear.

Twenty days later, on 29 May, Francis Laforey's HMS Carysfort sighted Castor off Land's End and recaptured her.

In March 1799 a quantity of the gunpowder stores were accidentally ignited, causing severe injury to one of Castor's midshipmen.

[6] By December that year Castor was on the Spanish coast when she captured the 2-gun privateer Santa Levivate y Aninimus off Oporto on Christmas Day 1799.

[3] Hale died in 1802; his successor Captain Richard Peacocke continued to command Castor in the West Indies.