Thereafter cutters under contract to the Post Office Packet Service sailed weekly, and later twice-weekly, carrying mail between Weymouth, Dorset, and the Channel Islands.
She and Rover were Dover packets on the Dover–Calais run displaced by the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars.
Because the Post Office was expecting to introduce steam packets within a year or so it decide to make do with temporary solutions.
The tonnages are all burthens (bm), with the first number coming from Lucking,[5] and the second, if present, generally from Newport.
[7] Note: The Falmouth Post Office packet service also sailed vessels named Chesterfield, Francis Freeling, Hinchinbroke, and Hinchinbrooke, but these sailed across the Atlantic and to the Mediterranean, and were more than twice the size of the Weymouth packets.