In 1801 she travelled to the Mediterranean Sea where she participated in the Egypt Campaign, with her boats serving as landing craft at the Battle of Abukir.

Roebuck was designed as such to provide the extra firepower a ship of two decks could bring to warfare but with a much lower draught and smaller profile.

From 1751 to 1776 only two ships of this type were built for the Royal Navy because it was felt that they were anachronistic, with the lower (and more heavily armed) deck of guns being so low as to be unusable in anything but the calmest of waters.

[5] Ships of the class built after 1782 received an updated armament, replacing small upper deck 9-pounder guns with more modern 12-pounders.

As part of the withdrawal, on 19 June Experiment and a transport ship took the greatly depleted British garrison of St Lucia away from the embattled island.

[9][12] The historian William Laird Clowes picks out Lieutenant John Barrett, the commander of Experiment at the time, as one of the naval officers who distinguished themselves during this period.

[1] On 11 March 1797 Experiment escorted ten vessels carrying 2,348 deported Caribbeans from St Vincent to the Spanish island of Roatan.

Arriving thirty-one days later, the small Spanish garrison was attacked and subdued, but one of the ships protected by Experiment was sunk during the engagement.

[16] After the British victory at the Battle of Tory Island, Experiment was then employed in taking 2,000 French prisoners of war from Plymouth to Portsmouth on 31 October.

[17] On 21 July the following year the ship was part of a squadron that arrived at Elsinore in preparation to sail to Reval to take on board Russian troops for the Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland.

[18] Experiment sailed to the Mediterranean Sea in February 1801, where she participated in operations of the Egypt Campaign as part of Admiral Lord Keith's fleet.

[1][19] Experiment carried part of the expeditionary army, but was not one of the ships involved in the initial landings at the Battle of Abukir on 8 March.

[21] Continuing in the Mediterranean, Commander George Mackenzie took over from Saville in January 1802, and in November 1803 sailed Experiment back to Britain.

[22] In May Lieutenant Robert Yule assumed command of Experiment, which was then refitted as a harbour store ship between July and October for service at Falmouth.

Yule did not staying long with the ship, being replaced by Lieutenant William Stewart in August, before the end of the work.