101 
consignment sold last year, the price obtainable would 
compensate the grower, inasmuch as it would doubtless 
command a preference over the Assam Company’s teas, 
which are bought up greedily by the tea trade for imparting 
pungency and flavour to other teas. 
The Rev. W. Gaskell read an extract from a letter of the 
Rev. Thomas Belsham (dated Hackney, August 16th, 1805), 
containing an account of a visit which he had jiist paid to the 
Duke of Grafton, in which the following passage occurs, and 
Mr. Gaskell M'ished to know whether any Member of the 
Society could confirm the statement made in it. 
“ Admiral Cosby told me one circumstance which was 
curious. When he was Commander-in-Chief in the Medi- 
terranean, during the last war, at the time that we were in 
possession of Corsica, and when Sir Gilbert Elliot was 
Governor-General of the island. General Paoli introduced 
Bonaparte, then a young man, to the Governor and to the 
Admiral, as a friend of his who would be glad to be employed 
in the service of England ; but these wise men, not having 
Lavater’s skill in physiognomy, rejected the proposal, which 
obliged Bonaparte to offer his services to the French, and this 
was the rise of Bonaparte’s fortune. I had often heard that 
Bonaparte had offered his services to the English and been 
rejected, but I hardly gave credit to it till I learned it from 
Admiral Cosby himself.” 
Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Roberts said that, in their 
boyhood, they had often heard a similar statement made, but 
were not aware on what authority it rested. 
A paper was read by Mr. John Atkinson, “ On the 
Erosion of the Plates of Locomotive Steam Boilers, and 
the mode of preventing it.” 
The Author attemjited to account for the erosion of the 
plates which takes j)lace near the smoke-box, or fonvard 
end in the interior of the boilers of locomotive engines. 
