HM hired brig Telegraph was built in 1798 and served on contract to the Royal Navy from 10 November.

[a] During the French Revolutionary Wars she took several prizes and was the victor in one notable ship action before she was lost at sea with all hands in 1801.

At daylight on 18 March 1799, Telegraph, under Lieutenant James Andrew Worth, was some leagues northwest of the Île de Batz when she encountered the French privateer Hirondelle.

[4][5] Hirondelle tacked to meet Telegraph and the two vessels started an exchange of fire at 0730 hours.

[b] In 1847 the Admiralty issued the clasp "Telegraph 18 March 1799" to the Naval General Service Medal for the action with Hirondelle.

On 2 January there was a report that a French privateer had taken a brig in Whitsand Bay and then landed a boat at Looe Island that had taken a cow and some corn from a poor man living there.

During the chase Telegraph exchanged a broadside with Heureux Societe but then fell behind, leaving the capture to Spitfire.

A gale a few days earlier had put Telegraph on her beam ends for several minutes with water up to the combing of her hatchways.

She sent two Swedish and one Danish vessel into Dartmouth, the latter with a valuable cargo of tobacco from Baltimore bound for Stockholm.

On 21 January 1803 prize money resulting from the capture of the galiot Beuns von Koningsberg and ship Cornelia was due for payment.

The head money for the capture of Hirondelle, long in dispute with the officers and company of Havick, was finally deposited in the Registry of the High Court of Admiralty on 26 October 1818.