[4] By July 1801 Spencer was at the Rock of Gibraltar in the squadron under the command of Rear Admiral James Saumarez in Caesar[5] On 6 July Saumarez sailed from Gibraltar with Caesar, Pompee, Spencer, Venerable, Hannibal and Audacious with the intention of attacking Admiral Linois's squadron of three French line-of-battle ships and a frigate, which were lying a considerable distance from the batteries at Algeciras.

Hard work repaired all the British ships at Gibraltar, except Pompee in time for them to follow the Franco-Spanish fleet when it sailed on 12 July.

During the battle, Superb badly damaged the French 74-gun Indivisible, leaving her adrift, her rigging shot off and her rudder destroyed.

The battle was a victory for the Royal Navy, and Stopford and the other captains received a Naval Gold Medal for their actions.

Next, Stopford and Spencer participated in the British invasions of the Río de la Plata and Battle of Copenhagen.

The ship's commander decided to occupy the abandoned Fredriksholm Fortress in the Kristiansand fjord, and demolish it.

[12] In April 1808 Captain John Quilliam took command and sailed Spencer in the Channel, where she served as the flagship for now Admiral Stopford.

After a failed and embarrassing September attempt to gain ransom from a little coaster out of Boston, Raggett turned his wrath on lightly defended Cape Cod towns.

[14] After a successful cruise in the summer of 1814 during which she captured the Royal Navy schooner Landrail, the American privateer Syren returned to the United States but as she approached the Delaware River the British blockading ships gave chase.

[19] On 16 March 1817, Wolf, a tender to Spencer, captured two smuggling boats, Albeona and Two Brothers, and their cargo.

[4] This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.