HMS Mullett (or Mullet) was a Royal Navy 5-gun wooden screw gunvessel launched in 1860. She served on the coast of West Africa and on the North America and West Indies Station before being sold in 1872 at Hong Kong for mercantile use. As the sailing ship Formosa she sailed in the Far East before being converted to a magazine in Melbourne. Design The s were an enlargement of the earlier Algerine-class gunboats of 1856. The British Admiralty ordered the first pair of the class as "new style steam schooners" on 1 April 1857; a further order for three took place on 27 March 1858. A sixth was ordered on 8 April 1859. The naval dockyards constructed all six; all were re-classified as second-class gunvessels on 8 June 1859. The Admiralty ordered a further twelve of the class on 14 June 1859 with this new classification, including the Mullett, and they received their names on 24 September. They were constructed of wood in contract yards and then fitted out at naval dockyards. A final eight were later ordered from the naval dockyards, although six of these were subsequently cancelled. Construction and career Mullett was laid down at the Rotherhithe yard of Charles Lungley on 29 June 1859 and launched on 3 February 1860. She was fitted with a Robert Napier & Sons two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine driving a single screw and developing . She was fitted out at Deptford Dockyard, and this would have included her armament of a 68-pounder 95 cwt muzzle-loading smooth-bore gun, two 24-pounder howitzers and two 20-pounder breech-loading guns. All ships of the class later had the 68-pounder replaced by a 7-inch/110-pounder breech-loading gun. The class were fitted with a barque-rigged sail plan. West Africa (1862–1866) After commissioning at Sheerness on 30 April 1862, she sailed for the West Africa Squadron under the command of Commander Cortland Herbert Simpson. She stayed there for a number of years and participated in at least one punitive expedition. On an evening in October 1862, open mutiny broke out in the Gold Coast Artillery Corps at Cape Coast. The authorities dispatched Mullett to Accra to forestall a similar outbreak. There was no loss of life. Although 80 mutineers were court martialled and two were sentenced to death, their sentences were commuted. On 28 June 1866, Mullett, under Captain Robinson, and in company with the small colonial steamer Dover, landed