The class comprised Djambi, Zoutman, Willem, Leeuwarden, Metalen Kruis and Curaçao.

Later two ships of a supposedly 'slightly revised' type were built, the Zilveren Kruis-class corvettes.

The Dutch naval plan 1855 called for a screw corvette of 250 hp as standard fighting warship for the East Indies.

Later on two wooden ships of the Anna Paulowna-class would actually be laid down as 'Steamship first class'.

In all probability the design of the Djambi class was based on the experience gained with the preceding corvette class which included Groningen, Vice Admiraal Koopman and Citadel van Antwerpen.

[6] The difference is due to nominal horse power not taking steam pressure into account.

The machines for Djambi were made by Fijenoord, the shipyard of the NSBM in Rotterdam, and tried in April 1861.

The earlier English corvette HMS Pearl of about equal size made 11.3 knots, but had 400 nominal and 1324 ihp, almost double the effective power.

The rifled gun was designated by its diameter, because it could fire an object of arbitrary weight.

On the contrary the weight of the shot of the traditional smoothbore gun could be derived directly from its bore.

It was the first attempt to produce a large caliber rifled gun for the Dutch navy.

Initially HNLMS Djambi, lead ship of the class and Zoutman, had only 4 RML 16cm No.3 and 12 smoothbore 30-pounders.

[10] There were rumors that with her beam of 12.25 meters Djambi was too narrow to properly operate all the guns.