One of the first steps that the Trinity House took in the work was to write to Sir William Godolphin, then Governor of the Scillies, asking him to recommend to the surveyors being sent out, persons of local knowledge whose word could be relied on and who were not wreckers. This was certainly a wise step, for the surveyors found, on arriving, that most of the islanders regarded them ‘with an evil eye,’ and cared for lighthouses no more than they did for ‘crowners’ inquests. By the middle of May, 1681, all was ready for the surveyors’ start: plans and drawings of the proposed lighthouse were prepared, and government so far assisted in the undertaking that it gave the Trinity House opportunity of purchasing any materials required from the naval stores at Plymouth; it also furnished the surveyors with one of her majesty’s yachts to convey them to Scilly. The lighthouse to be erected was to be certainly substantial—brick-built, circular, four storeys high, with walls six feet thick at the base, and all timber used was to be ‘of the best English heart oak.’ Its solidity has paid, for the lighthouse at St. Agnes, Scilly, of to-day is, in the main, that put there more than two hundred years ago. Altogether it was quite the most important lighthouse undertaking on which the Trinity House had as yet embarked, and it was with considerable anxiety that it awaited the arrival of the surveyors’ first report; this reached the board on July 20, and told that all had so far gone well, and that a site for the building had been selected at ‘Agnes,’ some three miles from ‘the Bishop and Clerk rocks.’ The superintendent of the works was not over-pleased with his lodging, which, though the best the island afforded, he considered dear at half-a-crown a week, for it was, he said, but ‘little better than a hogsty.’ Before the end of September the board heard of the completion of the lighthouse, and that a fire had been lit upon it, which was plainly seen from the Land’s End. Eighty chaldrons of coal were ordered from Swansea, and the regular lighting was fixed for October 30 next, due notice to that effect being given in the _Gazette_, and at Billingsgate and the Custom House, whilst letters announcing the fact were also written to the English merchants in the Canaries, Spain, and Portugal. Last, but not least, collectors were appointed at the different southern ports to collect the dues from incoming or outgoing ships. [Illustration: ST. AGNES LIGHTHOUSE, SCILLY ISLES. (_From a receipt for lighthouse dues in the possession of Lord Kenyan, dated December 19, 1690._)]