In addition to showing the flag, the ships fought pirates and suppressed the slave trade in East Africa.

[1] Unlike their half sisters, these ships received new compound-expansion trunk steam engines from John Penn and Sons.

[4] The ships carried 80 long tons (81 t) of coal which gave them a range of 880 nmi (1,630 km; 1,010 mi) at 10 knots.

If they ran aground, this shape allowed them to be pulled off easily and they remained upright if stranded by a receding tide.

[5] The class was barque rigged and their best speed under sail alone was over 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) if running before the wind, despite the drag of the propellers, which could neither be hoisted out of the water, nor feathered.

[9] These ships were primarily designed for service in Southeast Asian waters, including the rivers, and Frolic and Kestrel spent at least one commission there.

Another major deployment area was the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa where Frolic and Rifleman served part of one or more commissions.

A few months later, Frolic was one of the ships that blockaded the mouth of the Klang River in Malaysia in an attempt to suppress piracy supported by the local sultan.

Together with the survey ship Nassau, Rifleman helped to suppress a rebellion in Mombasa against the British-supported Sultan of Zanzibar in 1875.

[14] Her remains, positively identified by J. M. Greeley during an underwater archaeology field school held by East Carolina University in 1998, lie on the north side of St. George's Harbor Bermuda beside a former coaling wharf at Latitude 32°22'50.23"N and Longitude 64°40'14.68"W. The hull can be seen on Google Earth just below the water's surface on a north-south orientation with the bow towards the shoreline and the stern in deeper water.