Trapped, the men from the San José continued to fire on the British boarding parties with muskets and pistols.

The feat of using one enemy vessel as a 'stepping stone' to capture another was afterwards known in the Royal Navy as "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first rates".

From 10 August 1841 she was commanded by Captain Joseph Needham Tayler, serving as a guard ship at Devonport (established gunnery school).

Her figurehead was preserved, and for many years adorned a building (which served for a time as a sailmaking loft) in the Royal Victoria Victualling Yard, Deptford.

San Josef Mountain on the South Coast of British Columbia, on the south side of Estero Basin on Frederick Arm to the west of the mouth of Bute Inlet, was named in 1864 by Captain Pender for the San Josef, while Departure Bay and Nanaimo Harbour at the city of Nanaimo were originally named (in 1791) the Bocas de Winthuysen after Rear-Admiral Don Francisco Xavier Winthuysen.