By his own account, in about 1761 Bernard Romans entered into the King's service as a "commodore", "sometimes at the head of a large body of men in the woods, and at the worst of times ... master of a merchantman, fitted out in a warlike manner." After the war ended, Romans continued to go to sea. He sailed widely, both as a privateer during the war and as a merchant, reaching points as far north as Labrador, and as far south as Curaçao, Cartagena, and Panama. In 1774, Romans was elected to the American Philosophical Society.