[5] A prize crew took her to Halifax, where she was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Magicienne under Thomas Graves, on the North America station.

[8] On 29 April 1796 Magicienne was in company with Aquilon, Diamond, Minerva, Syren, Camilla, and Childers, when Acquilon captured Mary.

[9] On 1 November 1796, Magicienne, under the command of Captain William Henry Ricketts, captured the French brig Cerf Volant,[10] (enseigne de vaisseau Camau), off San Domingo.

[c] She was carrying delegates from the Southern Department of St. Domingo to the French Legislature, and hidden dispatches for the Directory General,[11] that a search the next day uncovered.

In late 1797 or early 1798, Magicienne, the troopship Regulus, and the brig-sloop Diligence captured the French privateer Brutus, of nine guns.

[16] After the crew of Hermione mutinied and murdered her captain, Hugh Pigot, in 1797, Magicienne was involved in the efforts to capture the mutineers and bring them to trial.

[17] The hired armed cutters Suworow, Nile and Lurcher then towed in four boats with a cutting-out party of seamen and marines from Captain and Magicienne.

[19] On 20 January 1801, Magicienne, with Doris in sight, captured in the Channel the French letter of marque Huron, which was returning from Mauritius with a highly valuable cargo of ivory, cochineal, indigo, tea, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, ebony, etc.

Ogilvy described her as a "remarkable fine Ship, fails well, is pierced for Twenty Guns, had Eighteen mounted, but threw them all overboard except Four during the Chace; I think her a Vessel well calculated for His Majesty's Service.

[23] Magicienne joined John Thomas Duckworth's squadron on 5 February, which led to her taking part in the Battle of San Domingo.

Their captains drove two French ships, the flagship, Impérial, and the Diomède, on shore between Nizao and Point Catalan, their hulls broadside to the beach and their bottoms stove in by the reefs that lay offshore, to prevent their capture.

Boarding unopposed, the boat parties removed the remaining French crewmen as prisoners and set both ships on fire.

During the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811, the French Navy captured the East Indiaman Windham in the action of 18 November 1809, but the newly arrived Magicienne, under Captain Lucius Curtis, recaptured her on 29 December 1809.

In August, attention was turned to Mauritius, where the British attempted to land troops to destroy coastal batteries and signals around Grand Port; the attempt turned sour, however, when two French forty-gun frigates, Bellone and Minerve, the 18-gun corvette Victor, and two East Indiaman prizes entered the harbour and took up defensive positions at the head of the main entrance channel.

Once the French flag was hoisted on what was left of the foremast of the Néréide, Magicienne and the Sirius began an intense cross fire against their enemies.