She had previously been Le Superbe, a 56-gun warship of the French Navy, until her capture off Lizard Point by HMS Kent in July 1710.

Le Superbe was designed by Pierre Blaise Coulomb and constructed between August 1708 and March 1709 at Lorient, a French naval base on the coast of Brittany in north-west France.

[8][9] In 1717 HMS Superb was in the Baltic commanded by Captain George Saunders, but by the middle of the following year she was back in the Mediterranean after a refit at Chatham.

[3] Under Captain Strensham Master, and attached to George Byng's fleet, Superb spent the next few months cruising and delivering dispatches before playing an active role in the Battle of Cape Passaro.

HMS Superb, Kent, Grafton and Orford kept up with the Spanish fleet, who were rowing their heaviest ships in the light wind.

Meanwhile Superb, Kent, Grafton and Orford, were ordered to overtake the remaining, larger, Spanish ships, which included Real San Felipe (St Philip the Royal) with Vice-Admiral Castagneta aboard.

[12] In April 1720, Superb was sent back to Woolwich for substantial repairs and subsequently served under Captain Arthur Field as a guard ship at Sheerness and then at Chatham.

[3] She was fitted out at Portsmouth before being sent to the West Indies in 1725, where she later joined Admiral Francis Hosier's fleet and during the Anglo-Spanish War took part in the unsuccessful blockade of Porto Bello.