It was early in 1665 that the first proposal for lighting this dangerous reef, full in the course of ships passing up or down Channel, was made; Sir John Coryton and one Henry Brouncker petitioning the Duke of York, the then Lord High Admiral, for permission to build a number of lighthouses, and, incidentally, one on the Eddystone. This proposal, referred to the Trinity House, was eventually reduced to a scheme for the Eddystone only, and the projectors, who were not proposing to benefit mankind without a good profit for themselves, were to be recouped their outlay by a charge of 2_d._ a ton on foreign shipping entering West Country ports: English vessels to be free of charge. Nothing more was ever heard of this early project, but in 1692 one Walter Whitfield made a bid for a patent from the Trinity House, by which he was to be authorised, at his own risk, to build a lighthouse, to reap the entire profits for a term of three years, and one-half for the next fifty years: the undertaking then to revert to the Trinity House. A patent was granted on these terms in 1694, but no works were initiated, and even when a revised agreement was made in 1696, it was not Whitfield, but Winstanley, who designed and built the first Eddystone Lighthouse. Under this compact the projector’s term of full profits was extended from three to five years. [Illustration: WINSTANLEY’S EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.] Henry Winstanley was a singular genius: very much of an artist, something, but not much, of an engineer, and a wholly sanguine person. He commenced operations on the rock on July 14th, 1696, his workmen being occupied all that summer in drilling holes and fixing the iron stanchions that were to support his building. Sometimes he and his men slept on the rock itself, on other occasions they were rowed at nightfall to the guardship _Terrible_, which, lent by the Admiralty, stood off and on all day. In June 1697, the commander of this ship, one Commissioner St. Loe, thought well to go off upon a wholly unauthorised cruise for nearly a week, and in the meanwhile a French privateer pounced upon Winstanley and his men, took Winstanley prisoner and, taking away the last stitch of the workmen’s clothing, turned them adrift in their boat. To the credit of the French government, Winstanley was speedily released, and the too zealous captain of the privateer seems to have been reprimanded for excess of zeal; while St. Loe was peremptorily asked by the Admiralty for an explanation of his conduct. In the midsummer of 1698 Winstanley’s lighthouse was completed and on November 14th, shed the first warning gleam across the waters. It was a remarkable structure. Rising to a height of about eighty feet to its weather-vane, it was fantastic in outline, beautiful in colour and gilding, and adorned with devices of the sun in splendour and the imposing inscriptions, “_Pax in terra. Post tenebras lux. Glory be to God._” It was rather more picturesque than even