She commissioned at Chatham, Kent in 1900 for service on the China Station from 1900-1904. The Commanding Officer, Captain George H Cherry RN, was a martinet and an extraordinarily stern disciplinarian: some 250 punishment warrants were read in two-and-a-half years from 1900-1902. As a consequence, the ships' officers paid for about one hundred of the "Cherry Medal" to be struck by Gamages of London, the medal to be a memento of their enduring such a captain: on the obverse it read "Argonaut China 1900-1904" and showed a foul anchor (for the Royal Navy), a fleece (for Argonaut) and a dragon (for China); on the reverse are a cherry tree and a representation of the officers who survived the commission. One of the medals was presented to King George VI but many were to be lost with ships sunk