One of the ship's company, Gunner John Robarts, was awarded the Victoria Cross for the destruction of Russian food stores in the Crimean War.

Power for her paddles came from a Seaward & Capel 2-cylinder direct-acting steam engine developing 200 nominal horsepower,[1] which was fitted at Woolwich in February 1841.

[4] In 1845 she transferred from the Brazilian station to the West Coast of Africa, where she was involved in the long campaign to put down the slave trade.

In 1848, she was serving in the Mediterranean,[4] On 21 December,[5] she rescued the survivors of HMS Mutine,[6] which had been wrecked at Chioggia, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia with the loss of five of her crew.

On 29 May 1855 in the Sea of Azov, Crimea, Gunner Robarts of Ardent with two lieutenants (Cecil William Buckley of Miranda and Hugh Talbot Burgoyne of Swallow) volunteered to land on a beach where the Russian army were in strength.