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264 large sum of money was intrusted to him. On this errand he visited France and England as well as the United States, but finally gave his orders here. On returning with his purchases to China in 1865, what he had done was so satisfactory to his chief that he was advanced to the next higher grade of official rank, viz, — the Fourth. The machinery he had bought was the foundation of the Kiang Nan Arsenal. It is curious to remark that the first work of a man whose supreme ambition it was, from Christian motives, to set his country forward in civilization, should have been the establishment of an arsenal. But it quite consisted with Yung Wing's ideas, which were intensely patriotic.

From 1865 to 1870 he was variously employed in different places, being under command now of one superior and now of another. Among the work that he did during this period, that of translation was prominent. He translated into Chinese Parson's Law of Contracts, and a book of English Law. He also translated large portions of Cotton's Geography, deeming that geographical knowledge was as likely to prove beneficial to his countrymen as any.

But the thing that lay nearest his heart and that was continually before him, was the question