Ferret finally underwent fitting for sea at Deptford between February and May 1787, and Commander John Osborne commissioned her in May.

Stopford was briefly Captain (acting), of Ambuscade, but returned to Ferret when the Admiralty would not confirm the appointment.

Admiral Joseph Peyton then ordered Stopford and Ferret back to England to report his observations.

[6] There she spent most of her time convoying vessels with supplies that the merchants of Kingston were sending to the white population of San Domingo.

In 1792 there was a civil war in San Domingo between the white and black inhabitants, conducted with great cruelty and atrocities on both sides, some of which Nowell witnessed.

[7] That year Captain Thomas McNamara Russell of the 32-gun frigate HMS Diana, on a relief mission to the authorities on Saint-Domingue, received the intelligence that John Perkins, a mulatto (mixed race) British former naval officer from Jamaica, was under arrest and due to be executed in Jérémie for supplying arms to the rebel slaves.

[7] At the onset of the French Revolutionary Wars, Ferret was assigned to the Downs station under Rear-Admiral M'Bride.

[1] The merchants of London presented Commander Nowell with a silver plate as a token of appreciation for his efforts in suppressing privateers.

The privateer had left Calais that day and Ferret had captured her that evening off Blackness Point, Devon.

[24] Ferret, under the command of Captain William Blanchford (or Blackford), left Britain on her first whaling voyage on 19 March 1802 for the Brazil Banks.

[25] In February 1803 she was off the coast of Brazil together with Perseverance and Duchess of Portland, and she returned to Britain on 10 June 1803 with more than 1050 barrels of oil.

[24] Ferrett, Skelton, master, arrived with oil at Port Jackson on 22 January 1804 from the Derwent River.

On 31 January she left St Helena in company with the Indiamen Travers and Union, and the whalers Adventure, Favorite, Perseverance, and Seringapatam.

[24] Captain Henry Gardner (or Gardiner) sailed Ferret on her sixth (and last) whaling voyage, leaving Britain on 24 February 1813.

[3] This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.