On 23 September she engaged the American warship USS Bonhomme Richard under the command of Captain John Paul Jones in the North Sea at Flamborough Head, England.

Bonhomme Richard began to sink, but Captain Pearson, unable to aim his guns at the frigate because he was tied to Jones's ship, surrendered, handing Serapis over to the Americans.

[1] The French Royal Navy commissioned Sérapis, and loaned her to a civilian master named Roche who planned to use the ship against the British in the Indian Ocean.

[5] On 31 July 1781, Sérapis was at Madagascar, trading spirits and arak for rice,[6] when the load master, lieutenant de frégate L'Héritier,[7] had candles taken out of their fire-proof lanterns.

[6] The crew fought the fire for two and a half hours, but the flames eventually burned through the walls of the spirit locker and reached a powder magazine.

[1] In November 1999, American nautical archeologists Richard Swete and Michael Tuttle located the remains of Serapis at Île Sainte-Marie.