Captain Caesar Brookes took over command in 1712, serving in the North Sea, before Pearl was paid off in December that year.

She recommissioned in July 1715 under the command of Captain Charles Poole, and served with Admiral George Byng's fleet in the English Channel, and then on the coast of Scotland during the Jacobite rising of 1715.

In 1716 she commissioned under Captain George Gordon, who served first in the Baltic and North Sea, before sailing to Virginia in 1717.

That year, Governor Alexander Spotswood issued an order for the capture of the pirate Blackbeard.

Blackbeard, who had supposedly retired, was living in the neighbouring Province of North Carolina, and Spotswood felt that he was an immediate threat to Virginia commerce should he resume his pirating career.