Either the former lessee for years no longer wished to retain a source of small patronage, rendered of little importance by well-known changes, or the government resolved on doing something beneficial for the inhabitants and for the country; at all events, a lease for lives has now been granted to Mr. Smith, a gentleman of ability and information, the eldest son of a respectable country gentleman, under certain conditions, and among them a stipulation for essentially improving the harbour by the construction of a pier, the government contributing a certain sum towards the expense, and the lessee undertaking to complete the work. Mr. Smith, it is understood, means to reside there; and great expectations are entertained of the benefit likely to result. Such a cluster of rocks, from eight to nine leagues west-south-west off the main land, must always be dangerous to ships returning from distant voyages; but the risk has been very greatly diminished by the excellent light on St. Agnes. There is, however, one rock called the Wolf, somewhat more than a third of the distance of Scilly from the Land’s End, on which a light-house might be erected; and the losses of lives and of property on this rock, which lies immediately in the way of all coasting vessels, more especially of those from Ireland, are supposed by many competent judges to exceed the losses occasioned by all the other western rocks taken together. Before lights were placed on the coast, and the soundings laid down with accuracy, and the nature of the ground described, and before astronomical observations were brought to practical perfection, the wrecks were, perhaps, quadruple to what they are at present, and with not one fourth of the vessels at sea: among the innumerable wrecks that have taken place at Scilly, the most remarkable is that of the Victory, a first-rate ship of war, commanded by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, returning from a series of exploits, which continued adding to his reputation even when they failed of obtaining success. This ship, with two others of a smaller size, struck on the rocks of Scilly in the night following the 22d of October 1705, when between fifteen hundred and two thousand men are supposed to have perished; and there is a tradition of one man having escaped, and of his relating some anecdotes of obstinacy, and even of violence, on the part of the Admiral, discreditable to him as a man, and the immediate causes of the calamity; but these additions induce me entirely to disbelieve the whole tale. The Scilly Islands are composed of granite, similar to that of the Land’s End district, and intersected by small lodes of tin, but not of a size sufficiently large to have produced at any period a quantity worthy of mercantile account.