The new brig departed Norfolk, Virginia, 3 December 1843, called at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and proceeded via Cape Town, South Africa, and the Straits of Sunda to Macau, arriving 27 August 1844.

There she embarked Caleb Cushing, the first American Commissioner to China, and sailed via Hong Kong for the coast of Mexico, arriving Mazatlán, 4 November.

She departed Tahiti 16 April 1845; visited Valparaíso, Chile; sailed "round the Horn", reached Norfolk, Virginia, 17 September; and decommissioned on the 25th.

However, after leaving Havana bound for Charleston, South Carolina, she endured the hurricane of October 10, 1846 driven over the reefs at Bahia Honda Key with every person on board surviving.

Informed that suspected slavers were bound for the coast of Africa under false papers, she seized American bark Ann D. Richardson off Rio de Janeiro 16 December.

The task force arrived at Asunción, Paraguay 29 January 1859 and quickly won James B. Bowlin, the U.S. Special Commissioner a respectful hearing.

Sea power here achieved what four years of diplomacy had failed to obtain: an apology, an indemnity for the family of an American sailor killed in the fight, and a commercial treaty advantageous to the United States.

The brig took Confederate privateer Chotank (1861) 3 June, and subsequently turned two British ships away from the Southern coast before reaching her blockade station off the mouth of the St. Mary's River on the 11th.

When word of the disaster reached the Washington Navy Yard, the brig moved into the Potomac River where her guns could command the approaches to Alexandria, Virginia, against a possible Confederate advance against the federal capital.