She was run ashore due to a pending attack by suspected Algerian pirates on Sicily in March 1670.

As a member of Red Squadron, Center Division she participated in the Battle of the Gabbard on 2–3 June 1653.

[11] On 31 July 1653 she was at the Battle of Scheveningen near Texel as a member of Red Squadron, Center Division.

As a member of Red Squadron Rear Division she participated in the Battle of Lowestoft on 3 June 1665.

She partook in the Battle of Vagen (Bergen, Norway) on 2 August 1665 losing 15 killed and 41 wounded.

[1] Sapphire escorted merchant ships travelling from Sicily to Venice to protect them from pirate attacks.

Sapphire was wrecked on 31 March 1670 when she was deliberately run aground at Sicily to escape from what her captain, John Pearce, thought were four pirate ships from Algeria.

"Entirely losing his head," Sir William Laird Clowes would write later, "and paying no attention to the remonstrances of the master and of the whole of the ship's company, he ran the Sapphire ashore, in order, as he supposed, to save her from capture.