After visiting ports in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and both coasts of the United States and Canada in 1921–1922, Raleigh ran aground off Labrador in August 1922 with the loss of a dozen crewmen.

The Hawkins-class cruisers were designed to be able to hunt down commerce raiders in the open ocean, for which they needed a heavy armament, high speed and long range.

[3] The ships were originally designed with 60,000-shaft-horsepower (45,000 kW) propulsion machinery, but the Admiralty decided in 1917 to replace their four coal-fired boilers with more powerful oil-burning ones.

[7] The guns of the first three Hawkins-class ships to be completed, Vindictive, Hawkins and Raleigh, were controlled by a mechanical Mark I Dreyer Fire-control Table.

It used data provided by the 15-foot (4.6 m) coincidence rangefinder in the pedestal-type gunnery director positioned under the spotting top at the head of the tripod mast.

[12] Sir William Pakenham, the new commander of the America and West Indies Station, hoisted his flag aboard the ship on 12 August and she departed for Montreal, Quebec, on 1 September.

[13] On 8 August Raleigh was bound for Forteau, Labrador, from Hawke's Bay, Newfoundland, and she entered a heavy fog in the Strait of Belle Isle en route.

She did not strike with much force, but the strong wind quickly blew her stern onto the rocks, which pounded multiple holes in the hull and gave her an eight-degree list.

The 18,481-gross register ton (GRT) Canadian ocean liner RMS Empress of France arrived on 10 August to load the crewmen, but her captain refused to do so as he did not have enough provisions for all the men.

Shortly after their return to the UK, Bromley and his navigator were both court martialled and found negligent in their duty; they were severely reprimanded and dismissed their ship.

Royal Canadian Navy dive teams were forced to visit the site in 2003 and 2005 to remove live 7.5-inch ammunition, although there were reports of shells still visible as of 2016.