The Bellerophon remained just over a week at Port Royal before setting sail to join a squadron of warships which was stationed in the Jamaica Passage. Although hostilities between Britain and France had been temporarily suspended, following the signing of the Peace of Amiens on 25 March, the Admiralty had no intention of easing up on the patrols of a region so critical for Britain's trade. Spread out in a line in the vicinity of Navassa Island, the squadron commanded the eastern approaches to Jamaica and was in a good position to keep an eye on French warships based at San Domingo, as well as providing some protection for the numerous British merchant ships using the Windward Passage and voyaging to and from Jamaica.
After only four months on the Jamaica station the Bellerophon was despatched to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a squadron of ships of the line. This was to avoid the worst of the hurricane season in the Caribbean, to show the flag in northern waters, and to remind France that Britain still maintained a presence in North America. The British had established a fortified naval base at Halifax back in 1749 in order to counter the threat to Britain's interests posed by the massive fortress which the French had built at Fort Louisbourg on the northern tip of Nova Scotia. With the loss of the American colonies in 1782, Halifax assumed a special importance as a base from which to defend British merchant ships trading with America and the fishing fleets operating off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
The voyage from Jamaica, through the scattered islands of the Bahamas and up along the coast of America, took three weeks. On 14 September 1802 they sailed past the rocky headlands guarding the approaches to Halifax and dropped anchor among the ships gathered in the harbour. They were greeted by a steady downpour of rain, and the weather continued damp and overcast for the next few days. The squadron remained at Halifax for just under a month before heading back to the West Indies.
By 8 November they were once again moored off Port Royal. For the next eighteen months the routine for the Bellerophon and for the other ships of the line on the Jamaica station settled into a regular pattern: two or three months at sea patrolling the stretch of the Caribbean which lay between Jamaica, Cuba and San Domingo, and then two or three weeks at anchor off Port Royal. The tasks were much the same as they would have been at Portsmouth or Plymouth: taking in stores, carrying out repairs, and providing assistance to the workers in the dockyard. However, there were a few additional tasks due to the climate. The heat caused the planking of the decks and sides to open up and the caulkers were kept busy caulking the seams; for a similar reason canvas covers were made for the ships' boats when they were stored on deck to prevent their planks opening in the heat; and windsails were erected to catch the breeze and provide some ventilation below decks.
The routine was interrupted when news reached Jamaica that the Peace of Amiens had come to an end on 16 May 1803 and Britain and France were once again at war. The peace had never been more than an uneasy truce. For Britain it had provided a much-needed breathing space and an opportunity to tackle her economic difficulties. Her national debt in 1802 amounted to £507 million and the gold reserves at the Bank of England were dangerously low. Large numbers of British tourists had crossed the Channel to visit Paris and to see for themselves the changes brought about by the French Revolution but the terms of the peace treaty were so unfavourable to Britain that there was little chance of a lasting peace. Under the terms of the treaty, signed on 27 March 1802, Britain had agreed to return to France, Spain and Holland all her recent conquests except Trinidad, Ceylon and the Spice Islands. So Minorca went back to Spain; and St Lucia, Tobago, Martinique and St Pierre went back to France. It was agreed that Malta, which Britain had captured from the French in 1800, should be returned to the Knights of Malta.
While Britain used the peace to take stock, Napoleon took advantage of the cessation of hostilities to pursue his territorial ambitions. In the words of his biographer J.P. Thompson, 'Bonaparte was conscious of a revolution behind him, a republic beside him, and an empire ahead of him.' During the summer and autumn of 1802 he annexed Elba and Piedmont, he incorporated Parma into the French Republic, and he invaded Switzerland. By December he was blocking British exports to Italy and Holland, and by March 1803 he had set in train a shipbuilding programme for warships as well as for large numbers of landing craft. These aggressive actions caused increasing suspicion and resentment in Britain. In his speech from the throne on 8 March 1803 George III announced that 'as very considerable military preparations are carrying on in the ports of France and Holland, he has judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of his dominions.' Britain had already delayed the evacuation of Malta, which was a strategically valuable naval base in the Mediterranean, and by the time she declared war on 16 May she had passed two Militia Acts to raise men for the army and had fifty-two ships of the line in commission.
When the news of the resumption of hostilities reached Jamaica the British squadron immediately went on the offensive. On 29 June they captured the French corvette Mignonne and a French brig. And in July they gave chase to two French ships of the line as they left the shelter of their harbour at San Domingo. The Bellerophon captured the 74-gun Duquesne after a few shots had been fired, but the second warship, the Duguay-Trouin, escaped and set sail for France. Apart from the capture of an American schooner in March 1804 this was the only action seen by the crew of the Bellerophon during their two years in the Caribbean.
The ship had lost only one man in the taking of the Duquesne but her crew had not been able to escape the ravages of disease. In this they reflected the experience of almost every ship and army unit which served in the West Indies. The greatest killer in the navy in this, as in earlier periods, was not enemy action but the ravages of scurvy, typhus, malaria and yellow fever. It has been calculated that during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France of 1793 to 1815 approximately 100,000 British seamen died. Of this number, 1.5 per cent died in battle, 12 per cent died in shipwrecks or similar disasters, 20 per cent died from shipboard or dockside accidents, and no less than 65 per cent died from disease.
Scurvy, caused by a lack of vitamin C in the diet, had decimated the crews of ships on long ocean voyages in the past but, thanks largely to the work of Dr James Lind, physician to the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar, much progress had been made in tackling this horrible disease. By following most of Lind's recommendations, Captain Cook had almost eliminated deaths from scurvy on his three great voyages of discovery although he had not realised that citrus fruits were the most effective cure. In 1795 the Navy started issuing ships with lime and lemon juice on a regular basis and captains were expected to see that every crew member got his share. On 1 June 1797, for instance, a few days after the Bellerophon arrived at Cadiz, there is a note in the captain's log which reads, 'Served lemons to the ships company,' and on 26 August 1803, when the ship was at anchor in Port Royal harbour, '220 gallons of Lime Juice was received on board to which 40 gallons of rum was added for its preservation.'