As Napoleon had foreseen, the capture of the fort made the position of the British fleet untenable and Hood was forced to organise an immediate withdrawal. He set fire to the arsenal, burned nine of the French warships on their moorings, and under cover of darkness he embarked the allied troops and slipped out to sea, taking with him several French ships as prizes. However, he left behind eighteen French ships of the line, enough to provide the navy of the French Revolution with a powerful Mediterranean fleet. These were the ships which Nelson, leading a fleet which included the Bellerophon, would attack at the mouth of the Nile in five years' time.
While Admiral Lord Hood's fleet was in action at Toulon, Lord Howe's fleet continued to patrol the western approaches of the English Channel. During the course of two September cruises to Ushant and back, Lord Howe decided to race all his ships under full sail. This was a useful exercise which would enable him to group them according to their relative speeds when he took them into battle. The result was a triumph for the Bellerophon. As they passed Bolt Head on the Devon coast on 4 September, Howe made the signal 'for the fleet to take stations as most convenient'. The Bellerophon came up with and passed most of the ships with all sail set. The ships were then ordered to head for Torbay. Pasley piled on all sail, including the topgallant studding sails, and noted that even in the light breeze then prevailing the ship achieved a speed of 10 knots. On the second cruise the speed of the Bellerophon was proved beyond all doubt. As they headed back from Ushant at the end of September, Lord Howe again made the signal for each ship to make the best of her way into Torbay. The Bellerophon's log recorded the result: 'Set all sail, passed all the ships and about 5 was anchored in the Bay and all sails handed before any of the rest got a berth.'
For the Bellerophon to outsail the entire fleet including the frigates was a considerable achievement and reflected well not only on her commander and crew but also on Edward Greaves who built her and on Sir Thomas Slade her designer. She now acquired the name 'The Flying Bellerophon' although no doubt the sailors continued to refer to her as plain 'Billy Ruff'n'. In fact we know the exact speed of the ship on all points of sailing because two of the reports on her sailing qualities have been preserved. These reports were printed forms which the captains completed at various intervals during the life of a ship. The forms consisted of a series of questions which covered the performance of the ship on different points of sailing and under various conditions of wind and weather, her draught before and after being loaded with stores for foreign service, and such details as the height of her lowest gunport above the surface of the water.
The first report on the Bellerophon was completed by Captain Darby in April 1800, fourteen years after her launch. From this we learn that her top speed was 12 knots which she achieved when running before the wind. 'With the wind two points abaft the beam and a stiff gale she will run 11 knots, with the wind on the beam, 10 knots, one point before the beam 9 knots, and close to the wind with a head sea 5 knots.' Such speeds were not so remarkable for a vessel with a length on the waterline of 168 feet, and are put in the shade by the performance of the clipper ships in the second half of the nineteenth century which could achieve speeds of 15 or 16 knots for days on end, but of course the Bellerophon, like her fellow ships of the line, was not built primarily for speed but as a gun platform for 74 guns and as a bulk carrier for ammunition and water and provisions for 550 sailors and marines. In a second report on her sailing qualities completed by Captain Halsted in 1811 the Bellerophon was still achieving top speeds of 12 knots and in answer to the question of how her rate of sailing compared with other ships the answer was 'In general superior.' Both reports commended her on being well built, and very weatherly. She steered very well, and in the trough of the sea 'she rolls deep but very easy'.
After the first race back to Torbay Lord Howe created a flying squadron of the fastest ships in the fleet and put Pasley in command of the squadron with the position of commodore. This gave an experienced or talented captain a temporary command over other captains in the squadron, even if they were his seniors. Pasley had held it once before when in command of the ships in the Medway. On that occasion he commanded the Bellerophon himself and drew no extra pay, but he was now given a captain under him to command the ship while he took command of the squadron. He was able to draw the pay and wear the uniform of a rear-admiral, and to fly a broad pennant on his ship which, according to the ship's log, was first hoisted on 11 September.
The man who became Captain of the Bellerophon under Commodore Pasley was William Johnstone Hope, a 28-year-old Londoner. He had joined the navy at the age of ten, had served on a frigate under Prince William Henry (the future King William IV) and on the Boreas under Nelson. In 1790 he was given his first independent command, the Rattler, a sloop, and this was followed by command of a frigate and then a fireship. He was advanced to the rank of post-captain on 9 January 1794 and given command of the Bellerophon. Captain Hope and Commodore Pasley both arrived at Portsmouth early on the morning of 16 January 1794. Pasley had been away on leave, visiting his wife and two daughters in Winchester. It was a fine but cold winter's day with a light breeze. They were rowed out across the choppy waters of the anchorage to the Bellerophon and as they stepped onto the deck of the ship they were welcomed by the salutes of the ship's officers, the shrill whistles of the bosun's pipes, and the stamping feet of the line of red-coated marines as they presented arms. Back at his desk in the great cabin at the stern of the ship, Pasley wrote a letter to the Admiralty informing their lordships that he had returned to duty and asking them to give orders to the Navy Board 'to cause the Bellerophon to be fitted in the usual manner as a flagship, that proper accommodations may be made for the additional officers appointed.'
At 10 am they weighed anchor and sailed to St Helen's Roads, the anchorage in the lee of the Isle of Wight, off Bembridge. The next day they were joined by the other ships in Pasley's squadron and on 17 January they sailed with the fleet out into the Channel, past the Eddystone rock, towards Ushant. During the next four months the Bellerophon, in company with other warships, made a series of cruises out to Ushant and back, just as she had the previous autumn. It was hard, gruelling work at the best of times but in the winter months the men had to endure bitterly cold weather and storms. The seas to the west of Brittany and in the Bay of Biscay are notoriously hostile for sailing ships. Gales sweeping across the Atlantic stir up long rollers which can change to breaking seas as they hit the shallow waters of the continental shelf. With the prevailing wind in the south-west, the rockbound coast of France becomes a dangerous lee shore, made more hazardous by numerous offshore islands and shoals, fierce currents and overfalls. The log-books of the British ships sent out to patrol this coast make little mention of the dangers and none at all of the hardships involved. The letters of Commodore Pasley occasionally provide a glimpse of the conditions. In January 1794 he was ordered to take a squadron of seven ships down the Channel to intercept some French frigates known to be sailing off Cherbourg. There was no sign of the frigates so, when they arrived off Ushant, Pasley decided to send two of his own frigates to reconnoitre the port of Brest, while he and the ships of the line took up station 6 to 10 leagues west of Ushant to cover their retreat if they ran into trouble. The frigates had only been gone a few hours when the squadron was hit by a fierce gale from the north-west.