She was appointed to a two-ship squadron under Suffren, who had his flag on Zélé. They set sail on 19 May 1780 to patrol off Portugal, and joined up with a division under Rear-Admiral de Beausset in Cadiz on 17 June. On 6 November, Marseillois departed Cadiz with a joint Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral d'Estaing, bound for Brest, where she arrived on 3 January 1781. Campaign of 1781–82, Castellane Majastre In Brest, command of Marseillois passed to Captain Henri-César de Castellane Majastre, and she became part of a squadron under Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse. Champmartin was the first officer, and a young Pierre-Charles Villeneuve served aboard as an ensign. On 22 March 1781, the fleet sailed for America to reinforce D'Estaing's forces there, arriving off Martinique on 29 April. There, the fleet met the British forces under Admiral Hood, and the Battle of Fort Royal broke out, an inconclusive long-ranged artillery duel that lasted until the British retreated the next day due to the damage sustained by HMS Intrepid, Centaur and Russell. De Grasse put to sail on 5 July, bound for Saint-Domingue where he arrived on 16 July. At Cap-Français, the fleet joined with the frigate Concorde, under Captain de Tanouarn, which brought news of the status and plans of the Continental Army. Letters from Washington and Rochambeau requested that de Grasse set sail either to New York, or into Chesapeake Bay. Reinforcing his fleet with the squadron under Admiral de Monteil and with 3,300 soldiers taken from the garrisons of the island, De Grasse decided to sail for the Chesapeake. On 5 September 1781, the French and British squadrons met in the Battle of the Chesapeake. Marseillois was in the van of the French squadron, and exchanged the first shots of the day with the 64-gun HMS Intrepid, under Captain Anthony Molloy. In early April, Marseillois took part in the four-day Battle of the Saintes. She was sailing at the rear of the fleet, and the French and British ships were already trading shots for ten minutes when she took her position in the line of battle. Later in the afternoon, she maintained a position in the line ahead of the flagship Ville de Paris, and supported her until she struck her colours, at which point Admiral de Vaudreuil ordered the fleet to regroup and follow him to Saint-Domingue. The fleet reached Cap-Français in several waves,