In 1855, the ship was sold to the British Royal Navy in part exchange for the sail frigate Thetis and was commissioned as HMS Recruit.

The Royal Navy thereafter did not put the vessel to much use either, as she remained idle in Valletta, Malta, until late 1861, with the only events of note taking place in 1857 when she helped recover a gunboat and two merchant ships that had run aground in the region.

The Nix-class avisos were paddle steamers designed by the British naval architect John Scott Russell and Prince Adalbert of Prussia in 1849.

[1][3] In late April 1851, Salamander was reactivated to tow her sister Nix, which had run aground in the mouth of the Oder river outside Stettin.

She took part in training maneuvers later that year and she carried Friedrich Wilhelm IV to the island of Rügen, but on 17 September she had to return to port after an outbreak of cholera among her crew.

[3][4] Salamander recommissioned for the last time under the Prussian flag on 22 October 1854, to be taken to Britain, where she and Nix were to be exchanged for the British frigate Thetis.

The poor reputation of the vessels, in large part a result of repeated boiler-related fires aboard Nix, led the naval command to decide to sell the two Nix-class ships.

[6] In early November, Nix and Salamander left Danzig and on the 23rd, they stopped in Jade Bay to take part in celebrations marking the founding of the naval base at Wilhelmshaven.

Two days later, they resumed their voyage to Britain, but the Hannoverian government initially refused to grant permission for the vessels to enter Bremen on the Weser to take on coal for the trip across the North Sea and shelter in the port to avoid bad weather.

[14][15] In April that year the ship was sent to South America via Lisbon and eventually arrived in the River Plate at Montevideo in November.

[16][17] The ship was later at Cape Town, where she was registered in 1874 as owned by the Table Bay Dock & Breakwater Management Commission and, by 1878, was in use as a powder magazine.