Whether this was ever done we do not know: the Trinity House records which tell the first part of the story are silent as to that point; but if it was, it certainly did not serve the object in view, for the Dutch ships, when they came, steered a very different course, and, as we all know, landed in quite another part of England. [Illustration: MODEL OF THE FIRST LIGHTSHIP. _From the Trinity House Museum._] CHAPTER VII THE NORE LIGHTSHIP Coming southwards from Harwich, we are soon at the mouth of the great water-way to London and in view of the Nore light. This is the first lightship of which we have had occasion to speak in particular, though there are now many stationed along our eastern and northern coasts—one of them, that on the Dudgeon Sands, being almost as old as the Nore. We have seen the spirit in which the Trinity House of 1674 regarded the proposals, made by a lighthouse speculator, to establish floating lights at the Nore and at some other parts; it regarded the proposition as that of a madman. Well, it sounds an odd opinion to us to-day, but really it is no more odd than the opinion expressed, sixty or seventy years ago, by men who knew of what they talked, as to locomotive steam-engines and railway capabilities in general. We do not hear of another proposal for floating lights at the Nore till 1730. Robert Hamblin had then devised a scheme for getting the whole of the lighting of the English coast into his own hands, and the dues therefrom into his own pocket. His plan was to fix floating lights at short distances from the shore, in such positions as would render the existing lighthouses absolutely useless. It was a bold stroke, and so far successful that he actually got his patent from the crown and established some of his lights, amongst them that at the Nore. But his reign was short: the Trinity House addressed a powerful remonstrance to the law officers of the crown, the owners of private lighthouses joined in the complaint, and Hamblin’s patent was speedily cancelled.