[1] Blonde was ordered on 11 December 1812 from Deptford Dockyard, to a new design developed from the lines of the Apollo class.

Blonde was launched on 12 January 1819, but was almost immediately laid up in ordinary at Greenhithe from between April 1819 and 1824, when she was completed and fitted for service at Woolwich.

The crew included James Macrae, Scottish botanist[2] sent by the Royal Horticultural Society,[3] and naturalist Andrew Bloxam whose brother Rowland was ship's chaplain.

From 24 December until 1 January 1825 they stayed at St. Catherines in Brazil, where the naturalist gathered some plants he thought might provide commercial crops in Hawaii.

On 4 February 1825 they anchored at Valparaíso, Chile, where the Hawaiian Admiral Naihekukui (also known as "Kipihe") died suddenly.

On 11 May a state funeral was held for the late King and Queen, the first Christian memorial service for a ruler of Hawaii.

American missionary Joseph Goodrich led a party in an attempt to climb Mauna Kea, the highest point for thousands of miles in any direction.

On 15–16 July they visited the royal tomb called Hale o Keawe at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau and removed most of the wooden carvings and other artefacts.

[7] The Huntington Library in Southern California holds the original manuscript of Byron's log of the voyage to and from Hawaii in 1824 and 1825 (https://catalog.huntington.org/record=b1706285).

In 1835 Blonde was stationed at Valparaíso under the command of Commodore Francis Mason when HMS Challenger was shipwrecked.

He was unwilling to risk the lee-shore, but captain Robert FitzRoy of HMS Beagle bullied him into jointly taking Blonde to the rescue.