In January 1755, Howe was given command of the fourth-rate HMS "Dunkirk" and was sent to North America as part of a squadron commanded by Admiral Edward Boscawen: his capture of the French "Alcide" was the first shot fired in the Seven Years' War. He was elected Member of Parliament for Dartmouth in May 1757 and became commanding officer of the third-rate HMS "Magnanime" in the Channel in July 1757. From then until the peace of 1763, he served in the Channel in various more or less futile expeditions against the French coast, gaining a reputation as a firm and skillful officer for his role in the series of naval descents on the French coast including the Raid on Rochefort in September 1757. Promoted to commodore, with his broad pennant in the third-rate HMS "Essex", he took part in the Raid on St Malo in June 1758, the Battle of Saint Cast in September 1758 and the Raid on Cherbourg in August 1758. He was particularly noted for his conduct at Rochefort, where he had taken the Île-d'Aix, and was described by George Rodney as performing his duties "with such cool and steady resolution, as has most justly gained him the universal applause of army and navy".