In 1770, he joined the Royal Navy and served three years until resigning in 1773 to accompany Captain Constantine Phipps on his expedition to the Arctic Sea.

[2] In 1775, Biddle, sympathizing with colonists who were opposed to British rule, returned to North America to offer his services to the State of Pennsylvania.

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety placed Biddle in command of the armed galley Franklin.

In December 1775, Biddle was commissioned into the newly established Continental Navy and made captain of the 14-gun brig Andrew Doria.

On June 6, 1776, Biddle was appointed by the Continental Congress to command Randolph, a 32-gun frigate then being built in Philadelphia as part of a plan to drastically expand the size and power of the American naval fleet.

Cyrus Townsend Brady's book For Love of Country is based partly on the life of Nicholas Biddle, in particular the action between the Randolph and the Yarmouth.

[6] Nicholas Biddle appears in the video game Assassin's Creed III as the primary target of the "Naval Missions".