Wilding entered Lloyd's Register in 1789 with J. Atkinson, master, M(oses) Benson, owner, and trade Liverpool–Jamaica.

[6][7] Moses Benson, Wilding's owner, had an engraved tablet placed in St James' Church, in Pemberton's memory.

[2] On 2 February 1798, as Wilding was returning to England from Jamaica the French privateer D'Gaytrouin (Dugay Trouin) captured her off Cape Clear.

[12][13] On 28 December HMS Spitfire captured the 14-gun transport Wilding, of 400 tons (bm), in the Bay of Biscay.

The report of her recapture noted that Wilding had been a British ship in the West Indies trade before the French had captured her.

[14] Wilding reappears in Lloyd's Register in 1799 with E. Sparks, master, John St Barbe, owner, and trade London–Leghorn.

[16] She was reported to have been "all well" at the Galapagos Islands on 4 October 1803, in company with Backhouse and Coldstream, and off the coast of Peru in April 1804.

His whalers, Wilding, Cambridge, and Caerwent passed to Lord Grenville, a relative by marriage, who sold his ownership when they returned from their voyages.

In the autumn of 1805 a small naval squadron under the orders of Commodore Sir Home Popham escorted a fleet of transports and East Indiamen carrying some 5000 soldiers under the command of Major-general Sir David Baird to attack the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope.

The expedition sailed again on the 26 November, and on 4 January 1806, in the evening, anchored to the west of Robben Island, preparatory to taking the Dutch colony.

In coming into the King's Dock pier, she drove the fluke of one of her anchors into her hull at the bow; she took on 12 feet of water in her hold.

[27] A more detailed account has Wilding leaving Honduras on 25 August and encountering a gale off Charleston on 14 September.