HMS Constance was a 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1846. She had a tonnage of 2,132 and was designed with a V-shaped hull by Sir William Symonds. She was also one of the last class of frigates designed by him. On her shakedown voyage from England to Valparaiso she rounded Cape Horn in good trim, her captain for this voyage being Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, who commented "I think her a good sea boat, and a fine man of war". On the voyage she encountered a hurricane at 62° south. Walker wrote that "nothing could have exceeded the way she went over it, not even straining a rope yarn". In August 1848 her captain , for whom the town of Courtenay was named, led 250 sailors and marines from Fort Victoria to try to intimidate the Indians.