Commissioned in 1745, she initially served in home waters as a convoy escort and cruiser before sailing to join the East Indies Station in 1747.

Split from her companion vessel when the expedition reached Cape Pillar off Desolación Island in Chile, Carteret continued on with Swallow despite the ship not being fully equipped for a solo voyage.

Sailing on a north-west course, Swallow went on to discover the Pitcairn Islands and New Ireland while battling a lack of supplies and severe bouts of sickness.

However Swallow and another sloop of the class, HMS Raven, had a much shallower depth in the hold than their compatriots, suggesting that they too were fitted with this platform.

She arrived at Hamburg with a convoy of merchantmen from Hull in the same month, but was subsequently forced to stay in the port for four weeks because changing winds stopped her from leaving; she finally returned to England on 7 January 1746.

[12] Intending to capture Mauritius from the French, Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen sailed with his squadron, Swallow included, from the Cape of Good Hope on 8 May.

[12][15][14] By 30 September little progress had been made despite the assistance of frequent bombardments of the defences by the squadron, and with the monsoon season approaching the invasion was abandoned.

[18] While sailing off the Coromandel Coast on 14 April 1749 Swallow was dismasted in a large storm, but despite this she managed to reach Fort St. David after it had ended.

[20][22] In doing so she captured the French 10-gun privateer Le Faucon on 4 May 1757 while in company with the 8-gun sloop HMS Cruizer and the armed cutter Hazard.

[20][26][27] Swallow was subsequently tasked with protecting convoys of supply ships that were being sent out to Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's fleet off Brest.

[20] Swallow continued under Banks until 14 April 1760 when he was promoted to post-captain and replaced by Lieutenant Charles Feilding, and the ship then joined the Western Squadron based out of Plymouth Dockyard.

[20][26] Feilding handed over to Commander James Cranston on 27 August, and under him Swallow captured the French 4-gun privateer Le Vautour on 9 January 1761 while in company with the 28-gun frigate HMS Aquilon.

[20][28][29] Beginning a run of prizetaking, Swallow then captured the letter of marque Le Tigre on 12 February, having been sent to cruise off Oleron.

[20][30] Some time in mid-February Cranston began to intermittently be replaced in command of Swallow by Lieutenant Robert Brice, who captured the 10-gun privateer snow Le Sultan off Bayonne on 28 February.

[20][36] The expedition, commanded by Captain Samuel Wallis in the 24-gun frigate HMS Dolphin, was setting out to better John Byron's earlier attempt, which Carteret had been a part of and which had discovered nothing.

[44][45] Swallow and Dolphin reached Cape Virgenes on 16 December, where they recorded the height of the native Patagonians who were thought to be abnormally tall.

[46][48] After ten days, with Swallow often having to be towed by her small boats, the ships reached Port Famine on 27 December and began a refit.

They stayed at the port for three weeks, giving Carteret time to make temporary modifications to Swallow, including lengthening her rudder, hoping to improve her performance.

[47] Frequent stops in ports along the way combined with the necessity to often tow Swallow meant that the expedition only reached the western end of the strait, Cape Pilar, on 11 April.

[Note 3] In the night of 10–11 April, as the two ships finally approached Cape Pilar, Dolphin passed Swallow and continued on, sailing out of sight by 9 am.

[55] Carteret planned to go in search of Davis Land, a phantom island, on a path that would have taken Swallow to New Zealand, but the winds did not allow it and they were forced northwards before beginning to sail west.

Swallow arrived at the outskirts of the Solomon Islands on 20 August, but Carteret did not recognise them and was put off landing by the hostility of natives on shore.

[60][61] They then sailed to Batavia, reaching the town on 3 June and departing on 25 September after further disagreements with the Dutch authorities, whose opinions of Carteret had already been soured by his behaviour at Makassar.

Having left Ascension, on 19 February 1769 Swallow was caught up with by the French circumnavigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who had been following the path of the British expedition.

[56][64] Naval historian Bernard Ireland has compared Swallow's voyage positively to Dolphin's, saying that while Wallis "proved a timid explorer...Carteret showed more mettle".