福建水师
In December 1877, Higginson was ordered to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, where he took command of the steamer , his first command at sea. He next became the first commanding officer of the new monitor when she was commissioned in Pennsylvania in an incomplete condition on 6 October 1882. After she steamed from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to New York City for completion, he detached from her and on August 23, 1883, took command of the gunboat in the Asiatic Squadron; under his command, "Monocacy", protected American interests during the Battle of Foo Chow of August 23–26, 1884, in which the French Navy's Far East Squadron under Admiral Amédée Courbet bombarded the arsenal at Foo Chow, China, and virtually destroyed the Chinese Navy's Fujian Fleet.