The history of the Trinity House is but imperfectly known, owing to the destruction of a considerable portion of its archives by fire in 1714. It was founded by a charter of Henry VIII.—who may almost be called the Father of English Navigation—on the 20th of March 1512, and received the appellation of the “Brotherhood of the Trinity House of Deptford of Strand and St. Clement,” This document opens with a curious declaration:—“Out of the sincere and complete love and devotion which we have for the very glorious and indivisible Trinity, and also for Saint Clement the Confessor, His Majesty grants and gives license for the establishment of a corporation, or perpetual brotherhood, to certain of his subjects and their associates, men or women.” At the outset, the duty of the members of the guild seems simply to have been to pray for the souls of sailors drowned at sea, and for the lives of those who were battling against the tempest. After a while their functions increased in number, and, assuredly, in importance. The charters which they received from Elizabeth, James I., Charles II., and James II., placed in their hands the general control of the mercantile marine, and even, under certain conditions, of the royal fleet. The illumination of dangerous parts of the English coast necessarily became a portion of their mission of patriotic beneficence. But the reader must not suppose that no lighthouses burned along our shores until the Trinity House was established. Rude signal-lights and beacon-fires already blazed on rocky headlands, and at the mouths of the ports most frequented by our shipping; but a greater number of lighthouses became necessary, and on a more perfect system of organization, as English commerce in the seventeenth century assumed its extraordinary development. But this was not all. The constructors of private lights and beacons were not animated by a pure unadulterated zeal for the public welfare; they levied excessive tolls on the vessels which profited by their guiding rays. To erect and maintain a lighthouse constituted an industry of so profitable a character that the privileges in virtue of which they existed, and which were nearly all found in the hands of the Trinity House, excited a very widespread feeling of jealousy and discontent. The legislation which had taken place on this subject was rigorously examined, and as a result these privileges disappeared. This important discovery was made in the reign of James I. The king found himself specially interested in making it; for, by its return to the crown, the monopoly of licensing the erection of lighthouses would have largely increased his private income. * * * * *