At the recommendation of the Australian government, the ship was commissioned into the RAN in 1915, and assigned to patrol the coast of Burma, in response to the threat of a German-instigated uprising.

[1] Propulsion was supplied by inverted three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, built by Keyham, providing 7,000 indicated horsepower (5,200 kW) to two propeller shafts.

[2] Psyche was commissioned on 2 May 1899 by Captain Francis Raymond Pelly, for service on the North America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda.

[2] Ships of the station's squadron exercised together in Bermudian waters and were maintained at the dockyard between extensive cruises around the western North Atlantic and the West Indies, visiting various British and foreign ports to "show the flag".

She was at Bermuda in March 1902,[5] visited Colón, Panama in early May,[6] and Havana in late May 1902;[7] and was in Nicaragua in July 1902, when the government captured revolutionists from an attempted coup.

[11] In December 1903, she was transferred to the Royal Navy's Australian Squadron, where she served until October 1913, when the Australia Station was handed to the control of the fledgling RAN.

[12] Approval was granted on 1 June, but before the ship's 1 July commissioning as HMAS Psyche, the Admiralty instead requested that the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board orchestrate a patrol of the Bay of Bengal, in response to the threat of a German-inspired uprising in India and Burma.

[12] Psyche was hastily fitted out, provided with a ship's company consisting primarily of untrained sailors, and sailed on 16 August with HMAS Fantome for Singapore.

[2][12] From there, the ships sailed to Ragoon, arriving on 10 September with Psyche's captain, Commander Henry Feakes, under instructions to establish patrols along the Burmese coast with the two warships, plus three British India Steam Navigation Company vessels.

[16] During the period from late 1915 to early 1916, Psyche served as escort to two ships carrying Turkish prisoners of war, was responsible for the transportation of two Chinese spies (one of whom escaped), and helped capture the ringleaders of an Indian soldiers' mutiny in Singapore.

[2] During the refit period, personnel from Psyche were used to commission the river gunboat HMS Moorhen on 6 July, and then man her to evacuate European civilians from Canton.

[2][16] The gunboat was halfway up the Pearl River Delta when it was learned that the civilians had been recovered by another vessel, and returned to Hong Kong, where Moorhen decommissioned on 23 July.