Fourthly, my plan for protecting her is totally different from any that have been proposed, and if we have not such excessively bad weather as would prevent anything being done, I believe it may easily be done. And if done will, I am convinced, be perfectly good; while any solid timbering, even if made, would, I think, be most likely the cause itself of tremendous damage, if once beat by the sea. I will only premise by saying that both Hosken and Bremner came to the conclusion that it was the best thing that could be done. I should stack a mass of large strong fagots lashed together, skewered together with iron rods, weighted down with iron, sandbags, &c., wrapping the whole round with chains, just like a huge poultice under her quarters, round under her stern, and half way up her length on the sea side. The detail of the mode, and the precautions of detail, I have not time now to describe. I am as certain as I can be of anything that, once made, such a mass of fagots would stand any sea for the next six months, and the chances of making it (after one or two failures, no doubt) are so good, that if properly taken in hand, I look upon it as certain. I will write more fully to-morrow--in the meantime I have ordered the fagots to be begun delivering. I went myself with Hosken to Lord Roden’s agent about it, and I hope they are already beginning to deliver them. Write and stop them or not--if not, of course my responsibility ceases. I will write again to-morrow, but let me know by train how we stand with the underwriters. This letter was a few days later supplemented by the following formal report to the Directors, which was printed and circulated amongst the proprietors. December 14, 1846. According to your request I have, as soon as my engagements would allow of my leaving London, paid a visit to the ‘Great Britain,’ and I now beg to report to you the state in which I found the vessel, and my opinion of the best means to be taken for recovering the largest possible amount of the property invested in her. If I state these opinions concisely, and without any qualifications, you will not suppose that I have the presumption to think them infallible, but merely that I am compelled, by the shortness of the time left me to write to you, to avoid all circumlocution, and to give you as simply and briefly as possible the opinions I have formed--at the same time I am bound to say that I have not formed them hastily, and that my convictions upon the several points upon which I may express my feelings are very strong.