After embarking her distinguished passenger, Ashuelot got underway again, threaded her way through a field of icebergs that obstructed the approaches to the coast of Nova Scotia; and rejoined the flotilla at Halifax on 3 June.

At this port, Ashuelot—which had long been slated for duty in the Far East—was detached from her companions and proceeded via the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean, and the Straits of Malacca to the western Pacific.

The double-ender's first memorable mission began at Amoy early in April of that year when the captain of the Royal Navy's HMS Cormorant informed Rear Admiral Henry H. Bell, the commander of the United States Squadron, that "aboriginals" had murdered the survivors from Rover after that American merchant bark had been wrecked on rocks just off the southern coast of Taiwan (Formosa).

In Japan at that time, civil disturbances followed the abolition of the shogunate and the assumption of supreme political power by the Emperor Meiji, drawing Ashuelot to the island empire.

As the years passed, the squadron increasingly took advantage of Ashuelot's comparatively shallow draft and the great maneuverability which sprang from her double-ended configuration by using her more and more in riverine operations.

Her next assignment was scheduled to be participation in the expedition to Korea headed by Rear Admiral John Rodgers seeking redress for the murder of the crew of the General Sherman.

However, a board of survey found that Ashuelot's hull had suffered significant damage during her icebound months and that both her engine and her boilers required major repairs before she could resume active duty.

But for a run to Taiwan early in March to carry the American consul at Amoy and his staff to that island, Ashuelot operated along the China coast between Shanghai and Hong Kong until sailing for Japan late in May 1872.

On 3 May, the side-wheeler sent a force ashore to join a landing party from the gunboat Yantic and contingents from other foreign warships in putting down a riot and in protecting the international settlement at that city.

After Ashuelot crossed Dongting Lake, she found that rapid current, sharp bends, and the narrowing of the stream significantly slowed her progress and greatly increased the difficulty and danger of her movement.

Nevertheless, Ashuelot's exploratory voyage from Shanghai to Yichang had blazed a watery trail almost a thousand miles into China—one to be followed until the eve of World War II by the long list of American riverine men-of-war known as the Yangtze Patrol.

The gunboat sailed for Japan on 3 August 1874 and reached Nagasaki on the 5th to await a party of scientists - headed by the noted American astronomer, Professor James Craig Watson—which had been sent to the Orient to observe the transit of Venus that would take place on 8 December.

In mid-August, the schooner-rigged steamer set course for Fisherman's Island—near Shantou where she guarded a party of rescue workers who were attempting to recover treasure from the wreck of Japan, a Pacific Mail Steamship Company liner which had caught fire and gone down some 25 miles off Breaker Point on 18 December 1868.

The following spring, the gunboat visited Siam to investigate complaints that arbitrary action by the American consul at Bangkok had prevented the timely shipment to Philadelphia of the Siamese exhibit that had been prepared by order of the young Thai monarch Rama IV for display at the United States Centennial Exposition.

She reached Bangkok on 23 April 1876, and Matthews spent more than a fortnight there dividing his time between the exchange of diplomatic courtesies and questioning people—both American and Siamese about the situation.

Relations between the latter two countries were then being increasingly strained as Japan became more active in the affairs of islands in the western Pacific—such as Formosa and the Ryūkyūs—which had long paid tribute to the Chinese Emperor.

In the spring of 1878, she returned to Nagasaki and operated in Japanese waters until heading back to southern China on 1 November for additional repairs before visiting the Philippines in December 1878 and Siam in January 1879.

At the end of a six-day visit there, Grant reembarked in Ashuelot; and she took him to the mouth of the Hai River and then up that estuary to Tianjin where he again left the ship and proceeded by small boats to Beijing for discussions with Prince Gong who ruled the Chinese Empire as regent while the seven-year-old Emperor was growing to adulthood.

While she was proceeding through heavy fog before dawn the next morning, Ashuelot struck a rock off East Lamock Island and suffered such severe damage that she had to be abandoned.