In 1760, at the Battle of Neuville she and HMS Vanguard pursued and sank two French frigates, Atlante, commanded by Jean Vauquelin, and Pomone; Diana took on board the important prisoners.

Captain Thomas McNamara Russell of Diana, on a relief mission to the authorities on Saint-Domingue, received the intelligence that John Perkins, a mulatto (mixed-race) British former naval officer from Jamaica, was under arrest and due to be executed in Jérémie for supplying arms to the rebel slaves.

Britain and France were not at war and Russell requested that the French release Perkins.

Russell and Captain Nowell, of Ferret, decided that Nowell's first lieutenant, an officer named Godby, would go ashore and recover Perkins whilst the two ships remained offshore within cannon shot, ready to deploy a landing party if need be.

[2] The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" offered the hull of "Diana, Burthen 668 Tons" for sale at Deptford on 16 May 1793.