Did the Royal Navy choose survey ships instead of spy ships?

Did Britain's imperial survey needs lead the Royal Navy to favor survey ships over dedicated spy ships?

The premise is unproven, because visible survey work and a thin public record do not establish that covert merchant or auxiliary collectors never existed.

Survey ships made sense for a navy responsible for hydrography across a global network of bases and routes. Their presence does not show that the Royal Navy rejected intelligence ships. Ordinary warships could collect signals, while merchant vessels could enter ports and coastal areas where a naval auxiliary would stand out. The surviving intelligence reporting makes covert collection plausible, but no named British program is produced. An absence in public sources is therefore poor evidence that the institution had no such capability.