She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine driving a single screw, which was also built in the Malta Dockyard.

Her keel was laid at a special slipway built for her on the Senglea side of French Creek, which was still known as the "Melita Slip" into modern times.

[2] The Army and Navy Gazette reported that The launch of the Melita, sloop at Malta Dockyard must have been quite an event in the history of the island.

[4] By the time she was launched, her entire class had been re-classified from gunvessels to sloops[1] Melita was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 27 October 1892, nearly ten years after she was laid down.

[6] While under Commander Ian M. Fraser she was as special service vessel at Constantinople when in November 1901 she was ordered to Devonport,[7] where she arrived in late December to be paid off 17 January 1902.