The motive which inspired the founder of the Smalls Lighthouse was of a higher order than those of most of his contemporaries. In erecting a warning light upon these dangerous rocks, Mr. Philips (for this was his name) proposed to himself, as his great and enduring recompense, “to serve and save humanity.” But, in this instance, generosity met with its due reward even upon earth; and when the descendants of the philanthropist disposed of their establishment to the Trinity House, they received, by way of compensation, a sum of £15,000.
The undertaking which Philips set himself was one of no ordinary difficulty, of no common danger. The rock on which he resolved to erect his lighthouse, in ordinary weather rose fully twelve feet above the water; but when the waves were heavy—a very common occurrence in those parts—it was completely submerged. And in Philips’s time engineers were not so numerous as they are to-day; the professors and practical expositors of science were then but few, were misunderstood, frequently persecuted or slandered, notwithstanding the precious contributions they were making yearly to the great sum of human knowledge and human happiness. Philips, therefore, searched far and wide before he discovered a man able to carry out his idea. At length he found him, but neither among architects nor engineers; the assistant he chose was named Whiteside, a musical instrument maker at Liverpool, and gifted with a remarkable aptitude for mechanical pursuits.
It was in the summer of 1772 that Whiteside first explored the maze of rocks, with which it is no flight of fancy to say his name will be ever associated. He landed on the Smalls with a gallant little band of Cornish miners; but the obstacles which he encountered at the very beginning might well have disgusted him with the enterprise. Scarcely was the foundation begun, before the weather suddenly grew tempestuous, and so furious was the gale, that the cutter which had disembarked them was compelled to weigh anchor and put to sea. The unfortunate workmen left upon the rock clung to it as best they might—clung to it as a drowning seaman to the fragment of broken spar which alone interposes between him and death; and in this wretched position they remained for two days and nights. Yet even this rough prelude could not discourage Whiteside, and he persevered through a long series of difficulties and dangers until his task was finished.
THE SMALLS LIGHTHOUSE.
One day the dwellers on the neighbouring coast picked up on the beach what is so expressively called “a message from the sea”—namely, a strip of paper enclosed in a bottle very carefully sealed—the bottle itself being deposited in a cask or barrel. On the barrel were written these words:—
“Open this, and you will find a letter.”
The finders obeyed the injunction, and found the following:—