On the 30th of November, 1693, SLOANE was elected to the Secretaryship of the Royal Society. A year afterwards he was made Physician to Christ Hospital. It is eminently to his honour that from his first entrance into this office—which he held for thirty-six years—he applied the whole of its emoluments for the advantage and advancement of deserving boys who were receiving their education there. For that particular appointment he was himself none the richer, save in contentment and good works. [Sidenote: THE CATALOGUE OF WEST INDIAN PLANTS, AND THE CONTROVERSY WITH PLUKENET.] In 1696 he made his first appearance as an author by the publication of his _Catalogus Plantarum quæ in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt, vel vulgo coluntur cum earundem synonimis et locis natalibus: Adjectis aliis quibusdam quæ in insulis Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, et Sancti Christophori nascuntur_. [Sidenote: 1696.] He had already seen far too much of the world to marvel that his book soon brought him censure as well as praise. By Leonard PLUKENET, a botanist of great acquirements and ability, many portions of the Jamaica Catalogue were attacked, sometimes on well-grounded objections; more often upon exceptions rather captious than just, and with that bitterness of expression which is the unfailing finger-post of envy. PLUKENET’S strictures were published in his _Almagesti Botanici Mantissa_.[48] SLOANE made no rash haste to answer his critic. Where the censure bore correction of real error or oversight, he carefully profited by it. Where it was the mere cloak of malice, he awaited without complaint the appropriate time for dealing, both with censure and censor, which would be sure to come when he should give to the world the ripened results of the voyage of 1687.