Smeaton’s troubles with the press-gangs certainly seem a little remarkable, as we read of them. Surely in the half century that had elapsed since Winstanley and Rudyerd had been annoyed by such outbursts of official vigilance, even government departments must have become more enlightened. Yet here, in 1755, and during the next two or three years, we find the officers of the ‘press’ acting with a want of discrimination equal to that their predecessors had displayed fifty years before, and repeatedly hindering the good work being carried on at the Eddystone by ‘pressing’ the workmen and boatmen into the king’s service. It must be said, in fairness to the heads of the Admiralty, that, when the matter was brought to their notice, they speedily directed the men’s release; the officers’ excuse generally was that they did not _believe_ the men’s story, that they were employed on ‘Eddystone service’; so Smeaton soon saved this excuse being made by painting on the main-sail of the Eddystone store-boat a large picture of the lighthouse, and by giving to each of the workmen a stamped silver medal[7] which served as a talisman in case the press-gang interfered with them on shore. Smeaton began work at the stone-yard at Mill Bay, Plymouth, in March, 1757, and shortly afterwards on the rock itself; and on August 24, 1759, the last stone of the lighthouse had been fixed in position. On it was engraved the short but expressive motto: _Laus Deo!_ What a contrast was the whole building, even to this devout utterance, to the production of Winstanley’s fantastic imagination; yet, perhaps, a less fanciful mind, a less imaginative disposition than his, would not have hazarded what, in his day, was regarded more or less as a mad project, and so the possibility of the lighthouse on the Eddystone rocks might have remained undemonstrated. [Illustration: SMEATON’S CHANDELIER.] The corona in which the candles were to be placed, and all the ‘tackle’ for hanging it, reached the Eddystone on October 17, and Smeaton tells us with pride that, in less than half an hour after its arrival, it was placed in position and the candles fixed in the sockets prepared for them. Then the signal was given to the lightship, hard by, that her services were no longer required, and she, hoisting her sail and hauling up her anchors, made her way back to Plymouth. At dusk Smeaton lighted his candles, and found, to his great satisfaction, that by opening vent holes at the bottom of the lantern he could keep down the temperature, and so, in summer, prevent the candles from melting—a feat which Winstanley and Rudyerd had failed to accomplish.