A contemporary description, provided by the Collector of Customs at Boston, Mr. Benjamin Lincoln to the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, noted: Agreeably to your orders I here send you a description of the Cutter Massachusetts built at Newbury port in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the year 1791.

John Tilley noted that "the Massachusetts was a two-masted schooner of 70 43/95 tons burden, 60 ' in length, with a beam of 17' 8" and depth of hold of 7' 8".

"[3] The cutter ended up being larger than originally authorized as her first master, John Foster Williams, ordered an increase in her size without first seeking departmental approval.

One of the first ten armed vessels of the United States ordered to patrol the Atlantic Coast to protect the revenue, she was too costly to please Alexander Hamilton, too expensive to operate to please General Benjamin Lincoln, and too slow to please her Master, Captain John Foster Williams.

They sold her in October 1792 and replaced her the following spring with a smaller, livelier cutter, the sloop Massachusetts II.