John Henslow designed the small sloops for coastal patrol duties off Newfoundland.

[2] The vessels would sit in the harbour of St Johns over the winter, and then in the spring would be fitted out to visit the ports on the station as soon as the ice had melted.

[2] Jahleel Brenton, who would command Trepassey in 1793, provides an interesting description of her and her sister ship.

The outgoing lieutenants would at the end of the year, or at least just before the admiral of the station left for the winter, go through a nominal invaliding.

The Placentia-class sloops were even more puny than the much-maligned Ballahou and Cuckoo-class schooners of the Napoleonic period.