During her 22-year career Centaur saw action in the Mediterranean, the Channel, the West Indies, and the Baltic, fighting the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the Russians.

[8] Under Captain Littlehales, while serving with the Channel Fleet, Centaur and her sister ship, Mars, collided off the Black Rocks during the night of 10 March.

[11] Late in 1802, Centaur sailed to the West Indies where she joined Vice Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth's squadron in Jamaica.

When Commodore Sir Samuel Hood arrived to take command in the Leeward Islands, he raised his pennant in Centaur.

On 26 June 1803 Centaur participated in the capture of Saint Lucia and its citadel, Morne Fortunée; three days later the expedition took Tobago from the French.

The militia guarding the battery had a brass 2-pounder gun but fled without putting up any resistance even though the landing party had to climb a steep, narrow path.

Unfortunately, the premature explosion of the battery's magazine cost Centaur one man killed, and three officers and six men wounded, the only casualties from the operation.

[18] Centaur was anchored in Fort Royal Bay, Martinique, when on the morning of 1 December she sighted a schooner towing a sloop.

Subsequently, Donnett and Sophie frequently visited the Rock to gather both the thick, broad-leaved grass that the crew could weave into sailors' hats, and a spinach-like plant called callaloo.

Callaloo, when boiled and served daily, kept the crews of Centaur and Sophie from scurvy and was a nice addition to a menu too long dominated by salt beef.

On 3 February, Centaur sent her boats to cut out the French 18-gun brig-corvette Curieux from the Carénage, under the guns of Fort Edward at Fort-Royal harbour, Martinique.

Her original commander was Lieutenant Robert Carthew Reynolds, who had led the cutting-out party, but he died of the wounds he had received in the attack.

Her flotilla consisted of Pandour, Serapis and Alligator, all three en flute, Hippomenes, Drake, the 10-gun schooner Unique, and transports carrying 2000 troops under Brigadier-General Sir Charles Green.

The boats achieved these captures despite a complete lack of wind and under heavy grape and small arms fire from the batteries and troops that lined the beach.

[31] As the hurricane lessened and the seas became a little calmer, the crew was able to get a sail under Centaur, and use her hawsers to lash it to her, much reducing the leaks and bracing her shattered frame.

On 16 July, boats from each of the squadron's line-of-battle ships and Indefatigable and Iris engaged in a cutting out expedition on two corvettes and a convoy in the Garonne.

Caesar was armed with eighteen guns and had a complement of 86 men, under the command of Monsieur Louis Francois Hector Fourre, lieutenant de vaisseau.

On 26 July 1807, Centaur, with Commodore Sir Samuel Hood and Captain William Henry Webley, sailed as a part of a fleet of 38 vessels under Admiral James Gambier and bound for Copenhagen.

Between 15 August and 20 October, she took part in the second Battle of Copenhagen when Gambier, together with General Lord William Cathcart, captured the Danish Navy in a preemptive attack.

[37] At some point, her cutter attempted to take a Danish dispatch boat that was trying to sail from Copenhagen past the island of Moen to Bornholm.

[37][d] By 24 December, Centaur was again briefly in the Atlantic, this time participating in General William Beresford's (friendly) occupation of the island of Madeira.

In early 1808 Russia initiated the Finnish War in response to Sweden's refusal to bow to Russian pressure to join the anti-British alliance.

The British decided to take counter-measures and in May sent a fleet, including Centaur, under Vice-Admiral Sir James Saumarez to the Baltic.

The Swedes massed a fleet under Swedish Admiral Cederstrom, consisting of 11 line-of-battle ships and five frigates at Örö and Jungfrusund to oppose them.

On 22 August, the Russian fleet, which consisted of nine ships of the line, five large frigates and six smaller ones, moved from Hanko and appeared off the Örö roads the next day.

The Swedish ships from Jungfru Sound had joined Rear-Admiral Nauckhoff and by the evening of 24 August the combined Anglo-Swedish force had made its preparations.

Captains Codrington, White, and Adam spent most nights in their gigs carrying out operations under cover of darkness to evacuate women, children and wounded.

Centaur first sailed to Saint Helen's Island, Quebec, and the Western Isles (the Azores), but arrived off Cherbourg by November 1813.

The plan was that a landing party in boats, to which Centaur had contributed, would storm Fort Talmont while Egmont would take advantage of high tide to attack Regulus.

[44] In January 1819, the London Gazette reported that Parliament had voted a grant to all those who had served under the command of Lord Viscount Keith in 1812, between 1812 and 1814, and in the Gironde.