[3] For fear of being considered an émigré, he returned to France, where he served in the general staff of Brest harbour until late 1795.
[2] Returning to France on 29 March 1803, Potier witnessed the breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens and the outbreak of the War of the Third Coalition in May.
Potier led several campaigns on Confiance,[2] during which he captured two British merchantmen, one loaded with soap and the other with spirits.
[2] After Revenant returned to Port-Louis from her first campaign, on 31 January 1808,[7] Surcouf gave Potier command of the ship on 2 April.
[8] In late April, as Revenant was completing her preparations and plotting her route, a prize taken by the privateer Adèle gave news of the new war between France and Portugal; she also brought intelligence about the Conceçáo-de-Santo-Antonio, a 64-gun ship of the line armed en flûte in Goa, bound for Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon.
[11] In mid-October, Diamant left Mauritius, also armed en aventurier with goods and passengers, and bound for Lorient.
She arrived in Quiberon Bay in the evening of 21 January 1809 and ran into the British blockade; a frigate gave chase, but Potier managed to escape by throwing his artillery overboard.