Volage was a one-off 28-gun sixth-rate frigate designed and built by the "superior class of Portsmouth shipwright apprentices".

[4] In 1831, Volage was docked in Rio de Janeiro (at the time capital of the Empire of Brazil) alongside HMS Warspite.

Volage fought in the Battle of Chuenpi during the First Opium War under the command of Captain Henry Smith.

Volage was converted into a powder barge at Sheerness Dockyard in March–June 1855, but was recommissioned for service as a storeship for the Baltic later that year.

She was loaned to the War Department as a powder depot in the River Medway on 19 October 1864 and was briefly returned to Admiralty control on 10 February 1871 before being loaned as a floating depot for gun cotton at Upnor on 19 September.