"Far in the bosom of the deep,
O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep:
A ruddy gleam of changeful light,
Bound on the dusky brow of night;
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his timorous sail."—Scott.
I.—THE EDDYSTONE.
When worthy Mr. Phillips, the Liverpool Quaker, taking thought in what way he could best benefit his fellow-creatures, built the beacon on the Smalls Rock in 1772, he could hardly have made a happier selection of "a great good to serve and save humanity." There are few enterprises more heroic or beneficent than those connected with the construction and management of lighthouses. From first to last, from the rearing of the column on the rock to the monotonous, nightly vigil in attendance on the lamps—from the setting to the rising of the sun—the valour, intrepidity, and endurance, of all concerned are called into play, and the wild perils and stirring adventures they experience impart to the story of their labours a thrilling and romantic interest. In the case of the Smalls Lighthouse, for instance, Whiteside, the self-taught engineer, and his party of Cornish miners had no sooner landed, and got a long iron shaft worked a few feet into the rock, than a storm arose that drove away their cutter, and kept them clinging with the tenacity of despair to the half-fastened rod for three days and two nights, when the wind fell and the sea calmed, and they were rescued, rather dead than alive, numbed from their long immersion in the water, which rose almost to their necks, and exhausted from want of food. And after the lighthouse had been erected, the engineer and some of his men again found themselves, as a paper in a bottle they had cast into the sea revealed to those on shore, in a "most dangerous and distressed condition on the Smalls," cut off from the mainland by the stormy weather, without fuel, and almost at the end of their stock of food and water—in which alarming situation they had to remain some time before their friends could get out to their relief. Most sea-girt beacons have their own legends of similar perils and fortitude; and the narratives of the erection of the three great lighthouses of Eddystone, Inchcape, and Skerryvore, which may be selected as the types of the rest, are full of incidents as exciting as any "hair breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach."
About fourteen miles south from Plymouth, and ten from the Ram's Head, on the Cornish coast, lies a perilous reef of rocks, against which the long rolling swell of the Atlantic waves dashes with appalling force, and breaks up into those swirling eddies from which the reef is named—the Eddystone. Upon these treacherous crags many a gallant vessel has foundered and gone down within sight of the shore it had scarcely quitted or was just about to reach; and situated in the midst of a much frequented track, the rapid succession of calamities at the Eddystone was not long in awakening men's minds to the necessity of some warning light. The exposure of the reef to the wild fury of the Atlantic, and the small extent of the surface of the chief rock, however, rendered the construction of a lighthouse in such a situation a work of great and (as it was long considered) insuperable difficulty. The project was long talked of before any one was found daring enough to attempt the task; and when at length in 1696 Henry Winstanley stepped forward to undertake it, he might have been thought of all others the very last from whose brain so serious a conception would have emanated. The great hobby of his life had been to fill his house at Littlebury, in Essex, with mechanical devices of the most absurd and fantastic kind. If a visitor, retiring to his bedroom, kicked aside an old slipper on the floor, purposely thrown in his way, up started a ghost of hideous form. If, startled at the sight, he fell back into an arm chair placed temptingly at hand, a pair of gigantic arms would instantly spring forth and clasp him a prisoner in their rude embrace. Tired of these disagreeable surprises, the astonished guest perhaps took refuge in the garden, and sought repose in a pleasant arbour by the side of a canal; but he had scarcely seated himself, when he found himself suddenly set adrift on the water, where he floated about till his whimsical host came to his relief. Such was the man who now entered upon one of the most formidable engineering enterprises in the world.
Although Winstanley's lighthouse was but a slight affair compared with its successors, it occupied six years in the erection—the frequent rising of the sea over the rock, and the difficulty and danger of passing to and from it greatly retarding the operations, and rendering them practicable only during a short summer season. For ten or fourteen days after a storm had passed, and when all was calm elsewhere, the ground-swell from the Atlantic was often so heavy among these rocks that the waves sprang two hundred feet, and more, in the air, burying the works from sight. The first summer was spent in boring twelve holes in the rock, and fixing therein twelve large irons as a holdfast for the works that were to be reared. The next season saw the commencement of a round pillar, which was to form the steeple of the tower, as well as afford protection to the workmen while at their labours. When Winstanley bade farewell to the rock for that year, the tower had risen to the height of twelve feet; and resuming operations next spring, he built at it till it reached the height of eighty feet. Having got the apartments fit for occupation, and the lantern set up, Winstanley determined to take up his abode there with his men, in order that no time might be lost in going to and from the rock. The first night they spent on the rock a great storm arose, and for eleven days it was impossible to hold any communication with the shore. "Not being acquainted with the height of the sea's rising," writes the architect, "we were almost drowned with wet, and our provisions in as bad a condition, though we worked night and day as much as possible to make shelter for ourselves." The storm abating, they went on shore for a little repose; but soon returning, set to work again with undiminished energy.
On the 14th November of the same year (1698), Winstanley lighted his lantern for the first time. A long spell of boisterous weather followed, and it was not till three days before Christmas that they were able to quit their desolate abode, being "almost at the last extremity for want of provisions; but by good Providence then two boats came with provisions and the family that was to take care of the light; and so ended this year's work."
It was soon found that the sea rose to a much greater height than had been anticipated, the lantern, although sixty feet above the rock, being often "buried under water." Winstanley was, therefore, under the necessity of enlarging the tower and carrying it to a greater elevation. The fourth season, accordingly, was spent in encasing the tower with fresh outworks, and adding forty feet to its height. This proved too high for its strength to bear; and in the course of three years the winds and waves had made sad havoc in the unstable fabric.
In November 1703, Winstanley went out to the rock himself, accompanied by his workmen, to institute the repairs. As he was putting off in the boat from Plymouth, a friend who had for some time before been watching the condition of the lighthouse with much anxiety, mentioned to him his suspicion that it was in a bad way, and could not last long. Winstanley, full of faith in the stability of his work, replied that "he only wished to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of the heavens, that he might see what effect it would have on his structure." And with these words he shoved off from the beach, and made for the rock.
With the last gleams of daylight, before the night fell and shrouded it from view, the tower was seen rising proudly from the midst of the waters. Before the dawn it had disappeared for ever, and the waves were lashing fiercely round the bare bleak ledge of the fatal rock. Poor Winstanley had had his presumptuous wish only too fully realized. The storm of the 26th November was one of the most fearful that ever ravaged our shores. The whole coast suffered severely from its fury, and when the morning came, not a sign remained of the lighthouse, architect, or workmen, save a fragment of chain-cable wedged firmly into a crevice of the rock. The disappearance of the warning light was quickly followed by the wreck of a large homeward-bound man-of-war, and the loss of nearly all her crew, upon the rocks.