[1] She was named after the previous HMS Discovery, one of the ships on James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific Ocean.

In King George Sound, the Discovery's naturalist and surgeon Archibald Menzies collected various plant species including Banksia grandis.

Over the course of the next four years, Vancouver surveyed the northern Pacific Ocean coast in Discovery wintering in Spanish California or Hawaii.

Vancouver named many features after friends and associates, including: Discovery's primary mission was to exert British sovereignty over this part of the Northwest Coast following the hand-over of the Spanish Fort San Miguel at Nootka Sound, although exploration in co-operation with the Spanish was seen as an important secondary objective.

It is remarkable that during Discovery's five-year voyage she lost only six sailors, all in accidents; none died from scurvy or violence.

But despite four years of dispatches with their home governments, Vancouver and Quadra failed to formally conclude an agreement.

There on 2 July 1795 Discovery and the brig Chatham captured a Dutch East Indiaman, Makassar, which sailed in, unaware that the newly established Batavian Republic was at war with Great Britain.

[3] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service medal with clasp "Copenhagen 1801" to all surviving claimants from the campaign.

[12] On 4 August 1801, Discovery served with Nelson when he resolved to attack an enemy flotilla off Boulogne using Bomb vessels.

[14] Among the notable persons who served on Discovery's great voyage: This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.