. . . . . . .
With that Winstanley went his way,
And left the rock renowned,
And summer and winter his pilot star
Hung bright o’er Plymouth Sound.
The sequel to this episode is a sad one, for it is recorded that the tower was destroyed on the 26th of November, 1703, and its public-spirited and confident designer perished with it.
And men looked south to the harbour mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down.
Other scenes rise up before us as the centuries roll on. We see the good citizens of Plymouth crowd on to the Hoe to witness the departure of Captain Cook on his various voyages of exploration in the South Seas; we note the pregnant comings and goings attending the great war with France, stately vessels sailing from the Sound in all their warlike glory, anon coming back crippled and wounded, with half their men killed or maimed. Then, later, we see the arch-cause of all this bloodshed—the great Napoleon—a prisoner on board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound, while the waters below us teem with the boats and craft of all descriptions of the curious sightseers.
The years slip by. This time we are at war with Russia, with France as our ally, and we stand on the Hoe to watch the stately troopships sailing off with the flower of our army to court death in the Black Sea or in the Baltic. History tells the tale.