The Times reported on 14 May 1808 that "the Crocus, a beautiful brig of 18 guns, built by the apprentices of this port [Plymouth]", would be launched on 25 May.

Commander Robert Merrick Fowler commissioned Crocus in August for the North Sea.

[6] Factor, of New York, Johnstone, master, had been sailing from Tenerife when the privateer captured her the day before between Beachy Head and Dungeness.

However, the French fleet had left Flushing (Vlissingen) and sailed to Antwerp, and the British lost over 4,000 men to "Walcheren Fever", a combination of malaria and typhus, and to enemy action.

As the strategic reasons for the campaign dissipated and conditions worsened, the British force withdrew in December.

Prize money arising from the net proceeds of the property captured at Walcheren and the adjacent islands in the Scheld was paid in October 1812.

The charge was that he had deserted while Crocus was off Land's End when he had been sent with a boat's crew to retrieve sand for scrubbing the deck.

[13] In November 1810 Commander John Bellamy recommissioned Crocus at Portsmouth, for the Mediterranean.

[16] On 4 September Crocus captured the French privateer settee Formica, of two guns and 25 men.

[17] Later prize money reports gave the privateer's name as Fournie and the head-money count as 36 men.

Crocus, of 260 tons (bm), launched at Plymouth in 1808, appeared in Lloyd's Register for 1815 with Donovan, master and owner, and trade London–West Indies.