HMS Grasshopper was a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 18-gun Cruizer-class

Cruizer class brig-sloop

The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging...

 brig-sloop

Brig

A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...

, built at Portsmouth Dockyard by Master Shipwright Nicholas Diddams and launched in 1813, and was the second ship of the class to bear the name; the first had been stranded at Texel

Texel

Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...

 and surrendered to the Batavian Republic

Batavian Republic

The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....

 on Christmas Day 1811.

Service

From 1814 she served in the Mediterranean before spending 1816 and 1817 in Portsmouth. From 1818 she was assigned to the North America Station, being based at Halifax and Newfoundland. During this time she was commanded by Commander David Buchan

David Buchan

David Buchan was a Scottish naval officer and Arctic explorer.-Exploration:In 1806, Buchan was appointed as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and from about 1808 to 1817 he operated in and around Newfoundland...

, and in her he carried out an assignment from the Governor, Sir Charles Hamilton, to return the native woman Demasduwit to her people, the Beothuk

Beothuk

The Beothuk were one of the aboriginal peoples in Canada. They lived on the island of Newfoundland at the time of European contact in the 15th and 16th centuries...

s. Although she died of tuberculosis before the mission could be accomplished, he transported her body to a Beothuk camp by ascending the Exploits River

Exploits River

The Exploits River is a Canadian river in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It flows through the Exploits Valley in the central part of the island of Newfoundland....

 in January 1820. Seeing signs of the Beothuk, but meeting none, they left her body and possessions in a tent by Red Indian Lake

Red Indian Lake

Red Indian Lake is located in the western interior of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The downstream end of the lake drains into the Exploits River. This winds through the interior of the island and eventually exits into the Atlantic Ocean through...

 and returned to Grasshopper by the end of February. In 1822 she returned to Portsmouth and was converted to a ship-sloop before returning in 1823 to Halifax. In 1827 she was in Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard

Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard founded by King Henry VIII in 1512 to build his flagship Henri Grâce à Dieu , the largest ship of its day....

, presumably for another refit.

From 1827 to 1830 Grasshopper served on the West Indies Station, based in Jamaica, and in 1832 she returned to Portsmouth.