Early in January 1800, she began operations against the French, taking an unidentified lugger off San Juan, Puerto Rico and recapturing brig Dolphin.

[4] Sometime in the late spring or summer she recaptured the American brig Olive, and on 13 June she took French privateer schooner La Decade.

As the Quasi-War with France drew to a close, President Adams could report to Congress: The present Navy of the United States, called suddenly into existence by a great national emergency, has raised us in our own esteem; and by the protection afforded to our commerce has effected to the extent of our expectations the objects for which it was created.Peace with France freed the Navy for operations against Barbary corsairs who had been preying on American shipping in the Mediterranean.

Five days later—with the added support of USS Adams, a sister frigate also named for President John Adams—the squadron again exchanged fir with group of Tripolitan forts and gunboats.

[12] One of the most important victories of the war came on 21 June when John Adams and Enterprise captured a 22-gun vessel belonging to Tripoli, thus weakening that state sufficiently to allow the squadron to turn its attention to Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, which were threatening U.S. commerce in the Western Mediterranean.

[18] In a letter dated 29 May to Commodore Preble the Secretary of the Navy states that "John Adams' is a stores/provisioning ship and should be constantly used as such unless an operation was about to happen that she could be useful for, but be detained as little as necessary.

As the second of these blows was being delivered 7 August, John Adams, now under Captain Isaac Chauncey, arrived on the scene deeply laden with stores.

Two nights later during a similar attack, an enemy shot sank one of John Adams's boats, killing three men and wounding a fourth, as the American Squadron severely punished Tripoli with over 700 well-directed rounds which took effect within the city.

After a fifth attack had been successfully completed 3 September, bad weather interrupted operations and John Adams sailed to Syracuse with other ships of the squadron.

She finally sailed under a flag of truce carrying peace commissioners Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell to Europe and arrived Wargo Island, Norway, 14 April.

Fortunately the treaty of peace signed on Christmas Eve 1814 freed United States men-of-war for renewed attention to this chronic trouble spot.

On 22 December 1817 she demanded and received the surrender of Amelia Island, off the east coast of Florida, the base from which corsairs of Commodore Louis-Michel Aury pounced upon merchantmen of all nations.

In the spring of 1819 Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson selected Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry for the mission of establishing friendly relations with the government of newly independent Republic of Venezuela and Provinces United of Rio de La Plata and negotiating with the president Simon Bolivar to obtain restitution for United States schooners Tiger and Liberty that the Venezuelans patriots had illegally taken in the Orinoco river during the revolution.

A month later he reached the mouth of the Orinoco, which he ascended to Angostura in Nonsuch while John Adams sailed on to Trinidad to await his return at Port of Spain.

After protracted negotiation, the Vice President of Venezuela Francisco Antonio Zea granted all the demands of the United States on 11 August.

Nicholas Biddle's ships labored with zeal; but the task, entailing careful searches by small-boat expeditions of innumerable bays, lagoons, and inlets, seemed endless.

Yellow fever took a much heavier toll than the enemy necessitating reinforcements which arrived 3 March 1823 when Commodore David Porter's "Mosquito Fleet" anchored off Saint Thomas.

After extensive repairs in the United States, John Adams sailed from Hampton Roads on 5 May 1838, accompanied by USS Columbia, on a cruise around the world.

The squadron immediately sailed to the scene of the incident and bombarded the forts at Kuala Batee to induce the Rajahs of Sumatra to agree to offer assistance and protection to American vessels.

Before returning to Rio de Janeiro on 23 April 1840, the squadron called at Singapore, Macau, Honolulu, Valparaíso, and Cape Horn.

The prolonged period of time the John Adams spent on station off the Mexican coast in support of American military operations, may account for the increase in flogging as reflected in the surviving disciplinary reports for years, 1846–1847.

[23] John Adams returned to Boston in September 1848 and received extensive repairs before joining the Royal Navy for action against the slave trade around Africa.

John Adams was sent to Newport, Rhode Island, the wartime location of the Naval Academy, to act as training ship for midshipmen.