[2] Charles Codrington Forsyth entered the Royal Navy on 18 December 1826,[3] initially participating in anti-slavery operations off Africa.

There, he participated in HMS Beagle's second voyage alongside Charles Darwin, surveying 1700 miles of South American coastline between Chile and northern Peru.

[4] In this role, he helped evacuate British residents of Rangoon during tensions with King Tharrawaddy[4] and surveyed Torbay, Western Australia.

[5] It was in this time he met Sir John Franklin, then governor of Van Diemen's Land,[2] who sought his assistance capturing a group of escaped convicts.

There, he returned to anti-slavery duties, earning further recommendations to the Admiralty for accomplishing hazardous military resupplies near the Cape of Good Hope.

[2][8] Forsyth's expedition left Aberdeen on 5 June 1850, with instructions to go through Prince Regent Inlet and search the west coast of Boothia Peninsula.

[9] Snow went ashore to investigate and found scattered traces of their camp, including tent rings and naval rope.

[2][7] Of the reaction, historian Ian Stone writes:The reception accorded Forsyth was all that he could have desired, although the Franklin ménage was furious at his early return.

Between 1863 and 1866, he was tasked with monitoring and deterring the USS Vanderbilt and CSS Alabama from targeting enemy merchant vessels in British waters off Cape Colony.