[5][6] In Alexander Beresford was employed for a year and a half, serving mostly on the Newfoundland and Leeward Islands stations.

When the French Revolution began Lapwing was busily employed in rescuing British citizens living abroad, and Beresford was sent ashore at Genoa and Turin to arrange the escape of a number of these residents.

Resolution was based on the North America Station as flag ship to Rear-Admiral George Murray, the commander-in-chief.

Murray rewarded him for these deeds with command of the 28-gun frigate HMS Hussar with the acting rank of post-captain in February 1795.

Beresford was then sent, under the orders of Captain Alexander Cochrane of Thetis, to attack a group of five French store ships known to be in Hampton Roads.

[5][7] However, the Admiralty decided that she was too large a vessel for him and instead appointed him to the smaller Raison despite the exertion he had put into Prévoyante.

On 25 August 1796 he was intercepted by the much larger French frigate Vengeance while much of his crew were away securing an American merchant ship as a prize.

Having made several other prizes in the following months, he was sent as escort to a homeward-bound convoy at the end of the year, and upon reaching Britain Raison was paid off.

He did so for around a year before the strains on serving in such bad conditions paid their toll on Virginie, and she was deemed unseaworthy.

He continued the blockade until March, when he instead joined the fleet of Admiral Lord Gambier, and as such participated in the Battle of the Basque Roads in April, for which he was the originator of the idea for a fireship attack.

He initially served as senior officer on the blockade of Brest but after four months he was sent to Lisbon where he worked in cooperation with the army of Lieutenant-General Lord Wellington.

On 24 April of that year he participated in the convoy that took Louis XVIII back to France at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, with Royal Sovereign conveying the monarch and a large entourage.

He was promoted to vice-admiral on 27 May 1825 and served as a commissioner of the Admiralty between 23 December 1834 and 25 April 1835, in result of which he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order in May 1836.

On 17 August 1815, in London, Beresford was remarried to Harriet Elizabeth Peirse, daughter of Henry Peirse, and with her had two sons (Henry William and John George) and four daughters (Harriet Charlotte, Mary Anne Araminta [died 1818], Georgiana and Mary Anne Catherine).