She was built at Chatham Dockyard, launched on 10 December 1768[1] and commissioned on 17 November 1770 under the command of Captain Maurice Suckling, Horatio Nelson's uncle.

St John was succeeded by Captain Thomas Greaves on 23 January 1773, and Raisonnable paid off at Plymouth on 23 September 1775.

She was re-launched on 14 January 1782 and placed under the command of Captain Smith Child on 15 May, until 29 August when he shifted to HMS Europa.

Captain Hervey made an unsuccessful appeal to the crew to return to their stations, and then had the ringleaders of the mutiny arrested at gunpoint.

[7] The American war at this stage was coming to an end, and Raisonnable was no longer required by the Navy, and so was laid up in ordinary – a state in which she remained for some ten years.

She once more re-joined the Channel Fleet on 1 November, and remained on active service until 14 October 1796, when she was docked at Plymouth for re-coppering.

Captain John Dilkes became Raisonnable's commanding officer on 21 January 1801, and the ship joined the North Sea Squadron.

After the battle, she was attached to a squadron under Captain George Murray in Edgar, which included one of Raisonnable's sister ships, HMS Agamemnon, to watch the Swedish Navy at Karlskrona.

On 11 November 1804, Glatton, together with Eagle, Majestic, Princess of Orange, Raisonable, Africaine, Inspector, Beaver, and the hired armed vessels Swift and Agnes, shared in the capture of Upstalsboom, H.L.

In April 1806, after receiving news that the people of Buenos Aires were unhappy with Spanish rule, and would welcome the British, Popham sailed with his squadron to the Río de la Plata.

Popham was replaced by Rear Admiral Murray, and following a disastrous second attempt to take Buenos Aires, Raisonnable returned to the Cape.

On 20 September, Rowley, commanding the squadron from HMS Nereide, succeeded in taking the town of Saint-Paul, the batteries, a 40-gun frigate Caroline, a 16-gun brig, and 2 merchantmen, as well as rescuing two ships of the East India Company (Streatham and Europe).

HMS Raisonnable is mentioned in Bernard Cornwell's The Fort in her role as part of the British relief fleet during the Penobscot Expedition.