HMS Druid was a 46-gun Seringapatam-class fifth-rate frigate built for the Royal Navy during the 1820s, the name ship of her sub-class.

The Druid sub-class was an enlarged and improved version of the Serinapatam design, modified with a circular stern.

Zephyr had come with the mails from Buenos Aires and Montevideo and would be delayed at Rio for some days while repairing a broken mast.

On 25 August 1839 Druid sailed from England to Sydney with Captain Hobson RN, who was tasked with negotiating an agreement with the natives of New Zealand about its settlement by English settlers.

In early June 1840, its commander Lord Henry John Spencer-Churchill, youngest son of the Duke of Marlborough, died on board off the coast of Macao.