But James I, though he might be pleased, probably knew how much genuine alarm the Trinity House felt at the Lizard and other lighthouse schemes put forward about that time, and he took _cum grano_ what was said, despite the flattery that enwrapped it. That is one reason why, in the face of such a very hostile report, Killegrew got what he wanted; the other is that, following some sage advice which his friend Carleton had given him, and making friends at court, the Cornish knight had become possessed of a share of Buckingham’s friendship, and what ‘Steenie’ said, James did—or, as in this case, what ‘Steenie’ asked to do, James gave him permission. As Lord High Admiral of England, Buckingham, in July, 1619, granted the sought-for patent in the terms of the petition, but with a clause compelling the patentee to immediately extinguish the lights should the approach of an enemy be apprehended. Killegrew had been in London to press his suit, and he now returned to Cornwall in high spirits with his patent. He must have pushed forward the work with considerable energy, as within a few months of his return he was able to tell his friend at the Hague that the ‘tower or lighthouse’ was already ‘well forward,’ and that he hoped, by God’s assistance, to finish it by the end of September and to light it ere the storms of autumn and winter began. But the task had not been an easy one in many ways, one of them being the difficulty in obtaining labour. The fact was that the Cornish folk round about, born and bred to wrecking—most of the houses near the Lizard were built of ‘the ruins of ships’—were no friends to any project that would rob them of their ill-gotten gains. Says Killegrew, the work had been far more costly than he anticipated, and chiefly because of the difficulty of getting labour. Why? The writer shall tell us:— ‘The inabytants neer by think they suffer by this erection. They affirme I take away God’s grace from them. Their English meaning is that now they shall receve no more benefitt by shipwreck, for this will prevent yt. They have been so long used to repe profitt by the callamyties of the ruin of shipping, that they clayme it heredytarye, and heavely complayne on me.’ Here is a vivid and a terrible picture of life amongst the dwellers on the Cornish coast. Killegrew felt that the lighthouse would rob these people of their gruesome harvest, and if it did, then he saw better times ahead. ‘I hope,’ he went on in the same letter, ‘they will now husband their land, which their former idell lyfe hath omitted in the assurance of theyr gayne by shipwrack.’