Regent was launched at Calcutta in 1812 and made four voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) as an "extra ship", that is under charter.

[3] There is an account that the Indiaman Regent encountered three French privateers on 12 November and was able to sink one and drive the other two off.

[Note 1] Regent reached the Cape of Good Hope on 29 December, and was at St Helena on 25 Jan 1813.

[3] Captain Philip Ridley sailed from the Downs on 26 February 1816, bound for Madras and China.

She reached Penang on 12 August and Malacca on 6 September, before arriving at Whampoa Anchorage on 3 November.

[3] Ripley reported to the authorities on St Helena on 29 May, as Regent sailed, that some person had approached him and offered him £600 (payable via draft drawn on English bankers), to carry a secret letter from Longwood, Napoleon Bonaparte's residence at St Helena, to England.