First voyage transporting enslaved people (1784–1785): Captain Patrick Fairweather was an experienced captain of slave ships. He had made his first voyage to
Calabar in 1755, probably as an apprentice on
Dalrymple while still a teenager. His first command had been in 1768. Fairweather left Liverpool on 24 March 1784, bound for the Bight of Biafra and Gulf of Guinea islands to acquire captives. He gathered the captives at Calabar and then delivered them to Grenada, arriving on 3 February 1785. Fairweather had embarked 557 captives and disembarked 510, for a loss rate of 8.4%. Her crew of 38 suffered three deaths.
Tarleton left Grenada 7 March and arrived at Liverpool 21 April 1785.
Second voyage transporting enslaved people (1785–1786): Fairweather sailed from Liverpool on 23 June 1785 bound for the Bight of Biafra and Gulf of Guinea islands to acquire captives. She arrived at Calabar on 14 August. She stayed there 180 days.
Tarleton left on 20 March 1786.
Tarleton delivered the captives to Dominica, where she arrived on 9 May. She had embarked 440 captives and disembarked 360, for a loss rate of 18.2%. She also had 46 crew men, five of whom died on the voyage. At some point in the voyage Captain Thomas Smith replaced Fairweather.
Tarleton left Dominica on 4 July, and arrived at Liverpool on 5 September. Alternatively, her master may have been Thomas Smith, replaced by Patrick Fairweather. She left Liverpool on 26 August 1786 and left Calabar after 281 days. (However, the same source states that
Tarleton and Fairweather left Liverpool on 25 December 1786, which is more consistent with having arrived in Liverpool in September, and is also consistent with the data in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.)
Tarleton left Africa on 19 February 1788 and arrived at Dominica on 11 May. When she arrived she was carrying 308 captives, 45 ivory tusks, 94 puncheons, 8 butts, and 15 tierces of palm oil, 50 tons of redwood, and 60 barrels of Guinea pepper. She had started with 371 captives, and another three to five captives died after arrival, for a loss rate of 18.6%. She left Dominica on 24 June and arrived at Liverpool on 24 June with 80 tons of redwood and cargo from the West Indies. Another account describes her cargo from Africa as 377 captives, an estimated 648 lbs. of ivory, 9,600 gallons of palm oil, 11,760 lbs. of pepper, and 112,000 lbs of redwood. ==Loss==