HMS Plumper was part of the 1847 programme, she was ordered on 25 April as a steam schooner from Woolwich Dockyard with the name Pincher.

[2] Her main armament consisted of two Blomefield 32-pounder 56 hundredweight (cwt) muzzle loading smooth bore (MLSB) 9.5-foot solid shot guns and six Blomefield (bored up from 18-pounders) 32-pounder 25 cwt MLSB 6-foot solid shot guns on broadside trucks.

[2] She was commissioned on 6 November 1848 under Commander Matthew S. Nolloth, RN[3] for Particular Service with Admiral Sir Charles Napier's Western Squadron.

Curiously, a report was published in the Illustrated London News on 14 April 1849 of a sighting of a sea serpent off the Portuguese Coast.

12° 31'W., being nearly due west of Oporto, I saw a long black creature with a sharp head, moving slowly, I should think about two knots ... its back was about twenty feet if not more above water; and its head, as near as I could judge, from six to eight...There was something on its back that appeared like a mane, and, as it moved through the water, kept washing about; but before I could examine it more closely, it was too far asternOn 25 June 1850, she ran aground and was damaged off Digby, Nova Scotia, British North America.

[8] She is recorded as arriving in Portsmouth from Brazil with 6,370 troy ounces (198 kg) of gold trans-shipped from the Emperor on 31 December 1852.

[10] She recommissioned at Portsmouth on 10 December 1856 under Captain George Henry Richards, RN for service on the Pacific Coast of British North America as a survey ship.

[14] During her tenure there she surveyed the lower Fraser River, Burrard Inlet, Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast[15] and the waters around Esquimalt and Victoria on Vancouver's Island.

The Plumper, having embarked a company of Royal Marines, was involved in the Pig War crisis between the United States and Britain in 1859; along with Tribune, which was commanded by Captain Geoffrey Hornby, the Plumper and HMS Satellite were dispatched by Governor James Douglas to prevent American soldiers from erecting fortifications on San Juan Island and bringing in reinforcements.