Stirling Castle enters Lloyd's Register in 1830 with Fraser, Master, and Abrams & Co., owners, and trade Greenock–Quebec.

[3][Note 1] She ran aground on 25 May 1836 on the Swain Reefs (near present-day Rockhampton, Queensland) while travelling from Sydney to Singapore.

[4] The surviving members of the crew, including Fraser and his wife Eliza, managed to journey to the nearby Fraser Island (which at that time was known as Great Sandy Island) where they camped for several days before being taken captive by the local Butchulla group of Aboriginal people, who took from them their clothes and belongings and used them for forced labour.

[5][6][7] Lloyd's List reported on 14 March 1837 that Stirling Castle, Fraser (late), master, had been totally lost on Eliza Reef.

Eliza Fraser later returned to the United Kingdom, where in England her services as a storyteller proved to be very much in demand, and she became a celebrity due to her ordeal.