Mercury was ordered from Peter Mestaer, at the King and Queen Shipyard, Rotherhithe on the River Thames on 22 January 1778 and was laid down there on 25 March.

On 23 July she returned from a cruise, having, on the 19th, retaken the ship Elizabeth, which the 32-gun American privateer Dean had taken a few days earlier.

[3] Captain Henry Edwyn Stanhope succeeded Carlyon in September 1782, and paid Mercury off later that year.

Mercury was again paid off in July 1786 and spent the period between August 1787 and January 1788 undergoing a small repair at Woolwich.

Benjamin was 20 leagues (97 km) off the Rock of Lisbon when Mercury finally captured her after a chase of 36 hours.

[5] Benjamin was a new vessel on her first cruise, during which she had captured the English brig Governor Bruce, on her way to Faro, and a Portuguese schooner.

Aimwell, of Whitby, had been sailing from Quebec to London when the French privateer Arriege, of Bordeaux, had captured her on 9 January.

As she was striking her colours her crew suddenly discharged a volley of small arms fire that slightly wounded one man on Mercury.

[1] She was briefly part of Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron off Cadiz, after which she went on to Alexandria, arriving there on 31 July 1800.

[1] On 5 January 1801, Mercury captured a French tartan, of unknown name, sailing from Marseilles to Cette in ballast.

[14] The vessels included the: On 20 January 1801, the day after Rogers had safely delivered his prizes to Port Mahon, he was some 40 leagues (190 km) off Sardinia when Mercury captured the French corvette Sans Pareille after a chase of nine hours.

She was a French navy corvette under the command of Citoyen Gabriel Renault, Lieutenant de Vaisseau.

She had sailed from Toulon the day before and was carrying a cargo of shot, arms, medicines, and all manner of other supplies for the French army at Alexandria, Egypt.

On 17 February 1801, Mercury detained the Swedish brig Hoppet, which was sailing in ballast from Tunis to Marseilles, in violation of the British blockaded of France.

[13] The next day, Mercury, in company with Mermaid, captured the ship Esperance, which had sailed from Tunis with a cargo of silk, cotton, and other merchandise.

The cutting out party were too few in numbers both to guard the captured prisoners and resist the approaching enemy, and were tired from the row in to board Bulldog.

[18] On 23 June 1801 boats from Mercury and Corso destroyed the pirate tartane Tigre, of eight 6 and 12-pounder guns and a crew of 60 French and Italians, in the Tremiti Islands.

[19] Though the first attempt to recapture Bulldog had failed, a second effort on 16 September 1801, carried out in company with Champion and HMS Santa Dorothea, succeeded.

[20] Rogers had received intelligence that Bulldog had left Ancona and was escorting four trabaccolos and a tartane that were carrying cannons, ammunition, and supplies to Egypt.

She and her crew of 59 men were under the command of Lieutenant de fregate Signor Don Ramon Eutate, and had sailed the morning before from Cadiz bound for Algeciras.

[23] In June 1807 James Alexander Gordon took command and sailed Mercury into the Mediterranean to operate off the Southern Spanish coast.

They captured seven more vessels subsequently, which the marines and sailors of the British ships sailed back out to sea.

In June Mercury sent in her boats to destroy a number of trabaccolos and other vessels on the beach at Rotti, near Manfredonia.

Fame, under the command of Captain Job Coffin, had been out since August 1811 and was on her return from whaling in the Pacific when captured.