The hired armed brig Colpoys was a former French vessel, launched in 1803, that was acquired by a Plymouth owner in the same year.

After some months as a privateer schooner in the West Indies, she was chartered to the Royal Navy as a hired armed vessel from April 1804 until 1807.

Colpoys was a 160-ton (bm) schooner, French-built in 1803, and acquired that year by Thomas Lockyer of Plymouth, where her hull was coppered and surveyed in June 1804.

In reporting the transaction, the Naval Chronicle described Colpoys as a schooner under the command of Lieutenant Ussher (or Usher), and the two chase guns as 6-pounders.

[6][a] Throughout Colpoys's military career, references to her in the London Gazette and Lloyd's List variously described her as a brig, cutter, and schooner.

In a letter dated Torbay, 19 March 1805, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Cotton reported that he had taken command of a number of vessels there that Admiral William Cornwallis had left behind.

[10] On 7 May she was at Plymouth when sealed dispatches arrived and she immediately set out to westward, destination unknown but presumed to be for the Streights [sic].

[13] Towards the end of 1804 Ussher was assigned to be the second-in-command to Captain Peter Puget in a proposed operation to destroy the fleet at Brest by means of fire ships.

[10] Lloyd's Patriotic Fund gave Mr. Francis Rennells, Colpoys's mate, an honour sword worth £30 for "his spirited conduct" in the attack.

[17] Next, on 5 February, Colpoys was off Cape Machicacho, some 60 kilometres west of San Sebastián when Ussher sighted a chasse-marée going along the shore.

[17] Fortuitously, the next day Cornwallis wrote to Mr. William Marsden, Secretary to the Admiralty, explaining that although there had been long-standing orders that neutral vessels trading with Spain were not to be detained, that after hostilities with Spain were announced, British captains had "generally understood that those orders were not in force", and giving Ussher's letter as an example.

[27] While cruising in the Channel, Colpoys was badly damaged, including the loss of her figurehead, bowsprit and fore-topmast, when a schooner Felix ran foul of her; the brig arrived at Plymouth on 22 October for repairs.

[28] Towards the end of the year, on 28 December, "His Majesty's Hired Armed Cutter Colpoys" recaptured the Swedish ship Anna Maria Dorothea.

[35] In mid-March the American ship Dragon, Beacon, master, which had been sailing from Lisbon to Corunna, arrived at Plymouth, a prize to Colpoys.

Two of the captured vessels, Santa Buena Ventura and San Antonio were both armed with two guns and carried cargoes of flax and steel.

[37] Apparently, he sent two men to the commander of the battery protecting the port to inform him that if the Spanish fired on British as they withdrew Ussher would hang his prisoners.

[10][42] An item appeared in the Naval Chronicle to the effect that during the February–March period, Colpoys had engaged a ship stronger than herself off Ferrol, almost under the batteries.

[46] Soon afterwards, with the gun-brig Haughty and Frisk under his orders, Ussher volunteered to cut out a French frigate lying at San Sebastián.

[10] With the same vessels, and the schooner Felix, he destroyed several batteries at St. Antonio, Avilés, and Bermeo, and on 28 July he captured the town of Ea.

[48] The French frigates Sirène and Revanche had captured the Eddystone, Sarman, master, on 13 September as she was sailing from Quebec to London.

[3] This may have been Providence, a French brig carrying pitch and tar, reported as arriving in Plymouth in mid-March, a prize to Colpoys.

[53] Hazard, Growler, Conflict, and Colpoys formed the blockading squadron off the Pertuis Breton, the strait between the north-east coast of the Île de Ré and the continent.

Colpoys escorted the prizes back to Plymouth, the French shore batteries sank one chasse-marée, of unknown name, after the British had captured her.

[55] The lugger Trois Amis and the chasse maree Courier de Nantes, each of about 20 tons (bm), and their cargoes, were auctioned on 20 April 1807 at Plymouth.