She was commissioned in April 1810 and spent her entire career serving on the Irish Station, including capturing a fast-sailing French privateer on 11 October 1811.

Last seen sailing off Fanad Head, the ship was wrecked in a nearby bay with every person on board being killed and the only survivors being a parrot and a dog.

The Royal Navy stopped ordering specifically large and offensively capable warships, and instead focused on standardised classes of ships that were usually more moderate in size, but through larger numbers would be able to effectively combat the expected increase in global economic warfare.

[4] The Apollo class was chosen to fulfil the role of standardised frigate because of how well the lone surviving ship of the first batch, HMS Euryalus, had performed, providing "all-round excellence" according to naval historian Robert Gardiner.

[1] On 29 August Saldanha detained the American ship Favourite as she sailed from Dublin to New York, sending her in to Cork, because the vessel was carrying too many passengers.

[15] Still serving on the Irish Station, on 19 November Saldanha sailed from Cork to Lough Swilly, where she was to replace the 40-gun frigate HMS Endymion on patrol.

[17] Having reached harbour in Lough Swilly, on 30 November Saldanha sailed with Endymion and the 18-gun sloop-of-war HMS Talbot with the intent to patrol towards the west.

It was thought that the frigate had been attempting to return to her anchorage in the gale, but had struck the submerged Swilly Rock off the harbour entrance, and then been pushed into Ballyna Stoker Bay by the storm.

[22][24] Twenty-one members of Saldanha's crew escaped the disaster, having been left behind on board the hospital ship HMS Trent when the frigate sailed from Cork.

[26] Bystanders reported that at the time it was shot the parrot had been attempting to speak either French or Spanish; it was listed as the only other survivor of Saldanha, alongside the dog.

[28] The columns inside the Presbyterian meeting house at Ramelton were constructed using material recovered from the frigate, and in the 1980s an anchor was discovered at the wreck site and placed on the shore near that spot.