After a long delay due to shortage of timber, Warspite was launched on 16 November 1807 at Chatham and commissioned by Sir Henry Blackwood, Admiral Lord Nelson's 'favourite frigate captain'.

During early 1813 Warspite took a couple of lucrative ‘prizes’ including a US schooner bound for Philadelphia ‘with brandy, wine, silks, etc.,’ from France.

In June 1814 her name appears for the first time on the North American and West Indies Station, when she carried reinforcements to Quebec; the first 74-gun ship to go so far up the Saint Lawrence River, under Captain Lord James O'Brien.

At Trincomalee Rear-Admiral Gage was replaced by Commodore Sir James Brisbane as the new South Atlantic (Rio de Janeiro) Station commander-in-chief.

In this capacity it helped to interdict two Egyptian corvettes at Navarino, one suffering substantial damage when it ignored warning shots and was engaged with the main battery.

[8] In 1831 she was at the South American (Rio de Janeiro) station as the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Baker, Captain Charles Talbot, at one time contribution towards salvage of HMS Thetis cargo off Cape Frio in 1830.