[1] On 21 March 1796, Lark joined the 32-gun frigate Ceres, Captain James Newman-Newman, in providing support to an unsuccessful attack by British troops from Port-au-Prince on the town and fort of Léogâne on the island of Hispaniola.
[1] In late 1798 or early 1799, while on the Jamaica station, boats from the 98-gun second rate Queen and Lark, under the temporary command of Lieutenant Hugh Cooke, cut out a schooner of four guns from Port Nieu in the West Indies.
[4] At some point between 26 June and October, Lark captured the American brig Sally, which was sailing from St. Thomas to Havana with 23 "new Negroes".
[9] The most intense action amongst these six captures occurred off Santiago de Cuba on 14 March when Loring saw a privateer schooner in a bay.
Loring had her repaired and did so so expeditiously that Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour appointed him as acting captain of Syren, which had just arrived with her crew in a demoralized and mutinous state.
The Spanish lost 21 dead, including their captain Joseph Callie, and six wounded; Lark took the remainder of the 45 man crew prisoner.
In late January or early February he found a Spanish merchant vessel at anchor off the Bay of Senegal and captured her.
The Governor of Senegal had intended to present her to her former captain, Victor Hughes, with the aim of using her to harass British trade on this part of the coast of Africa.
[20] Towards the end of 1805, Lark was escorting six merchantmen from Gorée, including the whalers Atlantic and Traveller, when at 30°N 17°W / 30°N 17°W / 30; -17 by the Savage Islands she came upon a French squadron consisting of five sail of the line, three frigates, a razée and two brig-corvettes.
Lark reached Cadiz on 26 November, and Rear Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth immediately took his squadron to try to find the French.
[23] On 4 February Lark was still in company with the two guarda costas when they encountered two gunboats and an armed schooner escorting a Spanish convoy of several small market boats.
Lark was able to drive the vessels of the convoy ashore, but the escorts took refuge under the guns of a 4-gun battery in a creek in Bahia Cispata, Colombia.
Nicholas then took his entire crew, less the 20 men he left to guard the two guarda costas, and put them in boats with the aim of capturing the gunboats and the armed schooner.
Nicholas then attempted to pursue the remaining Spanish vessels up a creek but while he was trying to do so, the pilot ran Postillon and Carmen ashore.
[23] On 23 August, Lark, in the company of the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Ferret, captured the French privateer schooner Mosquito, out of Santo Domingo.
[25] In the summer of 1809, Lark participated in the blockade of San Domingo until the city fell on 11 July to Spanish forces and the British under Hugh Lyle Carmichael.
The blockading squadron, under Captain William Pryce Cumby in the 64-gun third rate Polyphemus, also included Aurora, Tweed, Sparrow, Thrush, Griffon and Moselle.