The Continental Sloop Providence was previously the Katy, one of two sloops chartered in June 1775 by the Rhode Island committee of safety to oppose British Navy operations against local maritime commerce. While in Rhode Island service, commanded by Abraham Whipple, she captured a tender to H.M. Frigate Rose, protected coastal shipping in Narragansett Bay, and made a voyage to Bermuda in an unsuccessful attempt to seize gunpowder badly needed by the Continental forces besieging Boston.

Katy, which had been purchased by Rhode Island at the end of October 1775, was taken into Continental service in early December and renamed Providence. In March 1776 she was part of the squadron, under Commodore Esek Hopkins, that raided New Providence, in the Bahamas and captured military equipment and supplies. Commanded by John Paul Jones during May-October 1776, she operated in the western Atlantic escorting American shipping and preying on that of the enemy. Later in that year, through 1777 and 1778 and into 1779, Providence continued her raiding missions with notable success. In addition to capturing British transport and merchant vessels, in early 1778 she returned to the Bahamas to seize more gunpowder and other valuable military stores. On 7 May 1779 she engaged and took H.M. Brig Diligent. A few months later Providence was part of an expedition to Penobscot Bay, in what is now Maine. With other vessels of this ill-fated operation, she was destroyed there on 14 August 1779 to prevent capture by the British.