During the last tour, she took part in operations off the coast of Spain with an Anglo-German squadron during the Third Carlist War, where she helped to suppress forces rebelling against the Spanish government.

For the rest of the 1870s, she served as a survey vessel in the North and Baltic Seas before being decommissioned in August 1881, stricken from the naval register the following month, and subsequently broken up for scrap.

The Camäleon-class gunboats came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Reichsflotte and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark.

In 1859, Prince Regent Wilhelm approved a construction program for some fifty-two gunboats to be built over the next fifteen years, of which eight became the Camäleon class.

[5] In February, the naval high command had decided to send Delphin to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to serve as a station ship to protect German interests in the region.

Three days later, Delphin left Prussia for the Mediterranean Sea in company with Nymphe, stopping initially in Piraeus on 22 September.

For the remainder of the war, Delphin was assigned to the North Sea Flotilla, which was commanded by then-Korvettenkapitän (KK—Corvette Captain) Reinhold von Werner from his flagship, the ironclad turret ship Arminius.

This included replacing old or damaged hull timbers, installing a new deck, and rebuilding the crew spaces to make them more habitable.

[5] In October, Delphin took Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm from Corinth, Greece to Constantinople, where he met Sultan Abdülaziz.

Friedrich Wilhelm then moved to the corvette Hertha, and on 28 October, Delphin was sent to Port Said, where the opening ceremonies of the Suez Canal were scheduled to take place on 17 November.

[10] On 11 April 1870, Delphin received the order to return to Prussia, though she was damaged off the mouth of the Tagus River in Portugal, forcing her to put into Lisbon for repairs.

Three days later, she joined the Armored Squadron for a cruise in the Atlantic, though on 22 June, Delphin and Renown were detached to return to Prussia.

[11] Delphin was in need of repairs after her lengthy tour in the Mediterranean; as a result, she was not recommissioned when the Franco-Prussian War broke out eight days after her decommissioning.

[11] In early March 1873, the navy sent Delphin to Spain to join the ironclad Friedrich Carl and the corvette Elisabeth to protect German interests during the Third Carlist War.

[11] The German vessels, commanded by now-Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) von Werner, joined a British squadron.