Reaching Port Mahon in the Balearic Islands 25 September 1828, Fairfield cruised the Mediterranean Sea until returning to Hampton Roads 5 May 1831.

Among her crewmembers was midshipman George W. Taylor, later an infantry general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

During this cruise, she supervised the disarmament and dismantling of a group of ships belonging to an Ecuadorian revolutionary force after American mediation had ended a civil war.

She sailed to Hampton Roads, from which she took departure 28 July for the Mediterranean, carrying Commodore Charles W. Morgan to take command of the squadron based on Port Mahon.

She served as his flagship from April to July 1842 while he conducted negotiations with the Emperor of Morocco to obtain redress for the arrest and detention of the United States Consul at Tangier.