Originally named Hancock, she was laid down in 1777 on the Merrimack River at Amesbury, Massachusetts, by the partners and cousins, William and James K. Hackett, launched on 28 April 1778, and renamed Alliance on 29 May 1778 by resolution of the Continental Congress.

Massachusetts made him an honorary citizen and the Continental Congress gave him command of Alliance, thought to be the finest warship built to that date on the western side of the Atlantic.

[citation needed] The new frigate's first assignment was to carry Lafayette back to France to petition the French Court for increased support in the American struggle for independence.

After the marquis and his suite had disembarked, Benjamin Franklin, one of the American commissioners in Paris, ordered her to remain in France despite the fact that Landais's original instructions had called for him to load the frigate with munitions and then to sail promptly for America.

About this time, Bonhomme Richard captured a similar ship named Union off Cape Wrath at the northwestern corner of Scotland, and Jones allowed Landais to man both vessels.

The oncoming vessels were part of a convoy of over 40 British merchantmen which had sailed from the Baltic Sea under the escort of the 44-gun frigate HMS Serapis and the 22-gun hired armed ship Countess of Scarborough.

The convoy had been warned about the American squadron and turned back northward towards Scarborough, the two escort vessels placing themselves between the merchant ships and the approaching threat.

As the gap closed, Jones signaled his ships to form a line of battle, but Landais ignored the order and sailed off to one side, forcing Countess of Scarborough to do likewise.

On the way to check up on the duel which developed between the Countess and the Pallas, Landais fired a broadside at Serapis, which was by then immobile, and lashed firmly alongside Bonhomme Richard- as a result both ships were damaged.

When word of the battle reached London, the Admiralty ordered its nearby men-of-war to search for Jones' flotilla; the Royal Navy proceeded to look in all of the wrong places.

Since the other ships in his squadron had by this time, for complex diplomatic and legalistic reasons, shifted to flying French colors Jones decided to leave them behind when he left Holland in Alliance.

Want of winter clothing then prevented Jones from beginning an extended cruise in quest of prizes; and, instead, the ship struggled across the Bay of Biscay against head winds along a roughly northeasterly course toward L'Orient.

That day, Benjamin Franklin suggested that Jones take on a cargo of arms and uniform cloth for the American Army and promptly get underway for home.

When Jones returned to L'Orient on 20 June, he found that Alliance had already weighed anchor and moved to Port-Louis, Morbihan, where a recently emplaced boom blocked her path.

He justified this action as springing from a desire to avoid wasting lives, losing the fine frigate, and straining Franco-American friendship by having French forces attack an American warship.

By that point the recalcitrant Landais had shut himself up in the captain's cabin and refused to leave, and he was now forcibly carried off the ship by a party of marines led by his first adversary of the voyage, Capt.

Funds for the necessary yard work and for provisioning and manning the ship were slow in reaching Boston until Col. John Laurens – a former aide-de-camp to General George Washington, a successful battlefield commander, and an exchanged prisoner of war – appeared there on 25 January 1781.

Her crew contained many British sailors, a group of whom plotted to take over the frigate and to kill all her officers but one who would be spared to navigate the vessel to an English port.

Five days later, on 9 March, the frigate anchored in Groix Roads and disembarked her important passenger and his three companions: Thomas Paine, whose writings had exerted great influence in persuading the colonies to seek independence, Major William Jackson, a Continental Army officer from South Carolina, and the vicomte de Noailles, a cousin of Lafayette.

After almost three weeks in port, Alliance headed home on the afternoon of 29 March, escorting Marquis De Lafayette, an old, French East Indiaman which an American agent had chartered to carry a valuable cargo of arms and uniforms for the Continental Army.

Although all three ships were almost completely becalmed, the American drifted within hailing distance of the largest British vessel about an hour before noon; Barry learned that it was the sloop of war HMS Atalanta.

The sloops immediately pulled out of field of fire of the frigate's broadsides and took positions aft of their foe where their guns could pound her with near impunity in the motionless air, Alliance – too large to be propelled by sweeps – was powerless to maneuver.

Barry remained in port more than two weeks awaiting dispatches from Paris containing Franklin's observations on the diplomatic scene and on prospects for England's recognition of American independence and negotiations for peace.

On 18 September Alliance captured a damaged British brig and learned that a storm had scattered the Jamaica convoy sinking or crippling both escorts and merchantmen.

Still striving to avoid risk to the desperately needed money he was carrying to Congress, Barry again headed southwest to escape from these unidentified strangers and ordered her consort to follow.

Confident in both Alliance's speed and her fighting ability, Barry maneuvered her between Sybil and Duc De Lauzun to demand the full attention of the former so that the latter might slip away to safety.

Sybil then turned her fire toward Alliance and managed to send one shot from her bow chaser into the American frigate's cabin, mortally wounding a junior officer and scattering many splinters.

Ordered to proceed to Chesapeake Bay to take on a cargo of tobacco for shipment to Europe, the frigate got underway on 20 June, but, headed for sea, she struck a rock and was stranded until high tide.

Her new owner – who, as the guiding spirit on naval matters in the Continental Congress and that body's Agent of Marine in the later years of the American struggle for independence, had directed her operations – selected Thomas Read as her master during her first merchant service.

It is recorded thus: "September 19, 1788, the ship ' Alliance,' Thomas Reed commander, and George Harrison supercargo, arrived from Canton, consigned to Isaac Hazlehurst & Co.," of which Robert Morris was the company.