About the 1st of May the progress made in lifting the ship by tightening her from the inside, and by lightening her of everything moveable, led me to believe that we should be about getting her off towards the end of this month. I therefore felt that it was time to begin removing the fagot portion of the breakwater.... The process of levelling went on for about three weeks, when all above the loaded portion was taken away. We commenced on that portion from necessity, and found that by no contrivance of purchases and levers could our ten men get up or out more than four or five bundles per tide. This became, and even now is, a serious matter. We have got up all our chains and weights, and nothing remains but the fagots and stones, which are so embedded in sand as to form a mass which is more difficult to move than granite rock would be, as we cannot blast. Twenty labourers have been twenty-one tides at work, by contract, and certainly they have made an impression; but it is not lowered over two feet. The lower portion was made of furze bundles, here called whins, and they are great collectors of sand, and only come up at all by being cut to pieces. I mention this to show that furze and fagots loaded with stones on sand 500 yards from high-water mark, exposed to the sea, will form a foundation on which a building of any weight might be erected.... Mr. Brunel informed me, when I undertook to carry out his views, that there was nothing new in using fagots to stop breaches in sea-walls, as in Holland; and that he saw no reason why they should not stop the force of the sea in protecting ships as well, provided they could be secured, and a foundation got. They were to be made of alders, ash, holly, laurel, oak, or anything tough, to be cut down, and made up green, to be placed with all their leaves on, to be pointed to the sea at their butts; and inside the walls of them, if I may so speak, whin (furze) bundles were to be weighted down, the fagots placed in steps or rows of about 4 feet from the outside to the ship’s gunwale. * * * * * As the summer came on, the mode of lifting and floating the ship had to be decided. On this point Mr. Brunel wrote to the Directors:-- May 4, 1847. You have heard from time to time from Captain Claxton of the result of the means adopted by him for protecting the ‘Great Britain’ from the effects of the sea, and which, I am happy to say, have been quite successful; and you will have heard also generally from him of the steps which we have since taken, preparatory to getting off the ship. I will now explain to you the object I have kept in view in these preparations, and the course I should now advise you to follow.