Commissioned in 1806, she saw active service in the Napoleonic Wars, mostly in the Mediterranean, and afterwards served off the West Coast of Africa, acting to suppress the slave trade.

[4] There she was stationed in the Strait of Gibraltar, and operated in company with Scout and Morgiana to clear the area of enemy vessels.

The Commander in Chief, Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, in a letter to William Marsden, dated 24 May 1807, praised their effectiveness, noting that "within this Fortnight past they have taken and destroyed Eighteen of the Enemy's Vessels".

[4] In January 1825[4] Commander Douglas Clavering, who in 1823 in HMS Griper had led a scientific expedition to Svalbard and Greenland, was appointed captain of Redwing,[24] and assigned to the West Africa Squadron, engaged in the suppression of the slave trade.

[29] 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.