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. Pirates had recently been active in the area, prompting fear that they would attempt to seize any valuables taken from the sunken hulk. 1876–1879 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. Ashuelot sailed for Cochin, China, on 9 May and reached Saigon four days later. There, Matthews reported that the high-handed American diplomat had been far from diplomatic. He then returned to Bangkok, took the exhibit on board, and carried it via Saigon to Hong Kong where it was transferred to a merchantman which took it on to the United States. From time to time in the ensuing years, the gunboat returned to Siam, besides visiting the treaty ports of China and Japan. 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. When negotiations between the two nations grew more tense late in the summer of 1877, Ashuelot proceeded to Chefoo where she arrived on 13 August. She remained there into the autumn, ready to be of assistance to American citizens in the vicinity should they be endangered by the outbreak of war or domestic disorder. On 7 October, she got underway from Nagasaki and headed for Tianjin where she arrived on the 10th. When tension had somewhat relaxed, the gunboat sailed south on 21 November 1877 and, six days later, arrived at Shanghai for repairs. 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. 1879–1880 The spring of that year brought Ashuelot one of her