While in command of Phoebe, Hillyar was present at the Invasion of Ile de France in 1810, was heavily engaged at the Battle of Tamatave in 1811 and captured the USS Essex off Valparaíso in Chile in 1814.

His eldest daughter Mary Ann married January 1843 in Malta Sir Cecil Bisshopp, Bt of Parham in the County of Sussex.

Chatham was decommissioned in 1783 at the end of the war but Hillyar remained in service, principally on the North American Station, for the next ten years.

In Aquilon he was present at the Glorious First of June and subsequently moved with Stopford into the frigate HMS Phaeton, in which he remained until 1799, participating in Cornwallis' Retreat in 1794.

In Niger he attacked Spanish shipping off Barcelona and later operated as part of a boat squadron in Egypt during the British invasion of 1801 culminating in the siege of Cairo and the siege of Alexandria[1] In 1803, after the Peace of Amiens, Hillyar served in the Mediterranean in Niger, refusing herelovian promotion as it may have left him in reserve on half-pay, which would have left his family destitute.

In 1807 he joined the fleet preparing for operations in the Baltic Sea and in 1809 commanded the 98-gun HMS St George as flag captain for Eliab Harvey.

Off Chile, he discovered the American frigate USS Essex raiding British merchant ships and tracked her to the harbour of Valparaíso.