The Adolf van Nassau was part of the 1855 program that aimed to provide the Netherlands with a balanced fleet of screw propelled warships.

[3] In April 1865 she was reported to have attained a speed of 9 knots under steam, and 15 miles with machines and sail on a hard wind.

[9] The active service record of the Adolf van Nassau runs from September 1864 to June 1868, less than 4 years!

However, the mid 1874 decision to end her career does not necessarily reflect her condition, and might have been due to considerations about operational cost in combination with being obsolete.

[10] In early June 1861 a number of vessels was moved out of the Vlissingen dock to make room for launching the Adolf.

The commissioning of the Gloire in August 1860 had basically rendered all existing steam frigates and smaller vessels obsolete.

The ships she collided with was the Swedish Barque Gustav of Captain Berglund, which was sailing from Sundsvall (a center of forestry) to Bristol.

During the night the Adolf put the Gustav in tow till morning, when an English tugboat offered to pull her to the closest harbor.

On 21 October the Adolf anchored in the Nore with 'a lost voorbramsteng, broken bowsprit and other damage to ship and machinery'.

[25] Next a dramatized account of the affair started to circulate in the press: After sailing under very good conditions during the day and part of the night, the whole crew was suddenly awakened at about half past eleven by a terrible shock that threw everything in chaos.

Coming on the deck a big ship was seen square on the bow, while desperate cries were heard between loud cracking.

Day and night the machine crew, so often maligned by the officers, worked to repair the slit as well as possible, fearing the increasing force of the wind.

It announced that a report by Uhlenbeck stated that the damage to hull, rigging and steam engines was not so significant as had first been suspected.

By 10 December the news was that the machinery required huge and costly repairs making that she would only be ready by mid January.

The Chincha Islands War between Spain, Chile and Peru would cross the 1866 plans for the Adolf van Nassau.

On 4 February she reached Vlissingen and then immediately continued to Terneuzen in company of the screw schooner Frans Naerebout.

Meanwhile the situation got so serious that the coastal artillery in Zeeland was mobilised, and the floating battery De Ruyter was called to the scene.

On 14 February the Adolf anchored before Vlissingen, the news was that guarding the Independencia was not necessary because there was no official declaration of war between Spain and Peru.

On 17 April she left Piraeus for Salamis, a place widely known as very convenient to exercise with artillery and hand weapons.

There were plans for the Adolf and the corvette van Speijk to start another cruise to the Mediterranean by mid October.

Rumors that repairs to the machinery would delay the trip proved false, and on 20 October the Adolf left Nieuwediep.

On 20 February the Adolf and Van Speijk left Malta for Texel due to a telegram from The Hague.

On 27 May 1867 the Adolf van Nassau entered Dry Dock II in Willemsoord with all her guns on board.

By 5 July the plan was to make a squadron on the 15th consisting of the Adolf as flagship, the ram turret Prins Hendrik, the screw corvettes Zoutman, Curaçao and Metalen Kruis and the steam peddler Valk.

de Man and the corvettes Metalen Kruis, Zoutman and Curaçao left Texel for the North Sea.

He embarked on the recently arrived ironclad Prins Hendrik der Nederlanden, and with her steamed to the Adolf, which he visited.

In July 1870 the Dutch navy had her armored ships ready but held the four newest steam frigates in reserve.

[37] By late October 1872 a raise in the naval budget included money for the final repairs on the machinery of the Adolf, which was not yet installed on board.

In mid 1874 the new Secretary for the Navy Van Erp Taalman Kip stated that he thought that it was not sensible to (further) repair the Adolf, but that she could serve as Guard ship in Willemsoord.

As a consequence 60,000 guilders were requested to enlarge and change the marines barracks, and 25,000 was asked for a wireless communication post in and on the commanders building in Willemsoord,[39] because this had been on board the Adolf with her long mast.