She served on the North America station, in the Mediterranean, off the Portuguese coast, and in the West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars.

[6][1] On 4 June 1811, near Saint Lucar, Columbine's boats captured a French naval settee, armed with two howitzers and six swivel guns, carrying a crew of 42 men.

[8] Lieutenant George Augustus Westphal took temporary command of Columbine in June 1811 after Admiral Sir Richard Keats appointed Shepheard captain pro temp of the 74-gun Alfred.

[9] Admiral Legge, the commander of the British fleet at Cadiz, in mid-October ordered Stately, Tuscan, and Columbine to transport troops to Tarifa.

[15] On 16 March Columbine was in the Demerara River when Muddle awarded W. Hill, master of the ship Liverpool, a letter of approbation and a pendant to fly from her mast.

Liverpool had repulsed an attack by the notorious, and usually more successful, American privateer Snap Dragon in a five-hour action.

Commander the Honourable Charles Abbot commissioned her in September, and later sailed her for the Mediterranean, where she operated off the west coast of Greece.

On the night of the 24th, the weather worsened and her single anchor did not hold her securely, with the result that she drove onto a reef and foundered.

The subsequent court martial reprimanded Abbott and the master, James Atkinson, for having used only one anchor and for not having prepared for the eventuality of bad weather.

[19] Another account reports that The Turkish garrison at Modon, though itself ill-provisioned, sent supplies that permitted the crew to subsist until Alacrity could retrieve them.