Then, on 6 November 1779, the Marine Committee named Captain John Barry as her prospective commanding officer and ordered him to "...hasten, as much as will be in your power, the completing of that ship...." Nevertheless, the difficulties which previously had slowed the building of the warship continued to prevail during the ensuing months, and little had been accomplished by mid-March 1780 when Barry applied for a leave of absence to begin on the 23rd.

Over nine months later, on 23 June 1781, Congress ordered the Continental Agent of Marine, Robert Morris, to get America ready for sea and, on the 26th, picked Captain John Paul Jones as her commanding officer.

Despite his disappointment over losing his chance to command the largest warship yet built in America, Jones remained in Portsmouth striving to finish the new ship.

His labors bore fruit on 5 November 1782 when America – held partially back by a series of ropes calculated to break in sequence to check the vessel's acceleration, lest she come to grief on the opposite bank of the river – slipped gracefully into the waters of the Piscataqua.

A bit over three years later, she was carefully examined by a survey committee which found her damaged by dry rot beyond economical repair, probably caused by her wartime construction from green timber.