em relief.'

Meanwhile the lighthouse itself bore the storm admirably, and suffered
nothing from it. Two years afterwards a tempest of unusual violence
occurred, causing much loss of life and property at Plymouth. Eighty
thousand pounds' worth of damage were done in the harbour and sound,
and a friend of Smeaton's, after writing a full description of the
several disasters, adds, 'In the midst of all this horror and
confusion, my friend may be assured that I was not insensible to his
honour and credit, yet in spite of the high opinion that I had of his
judgment and abilities, I could not but feel the utmost anxiety for
the fate of the Eddystone. Several times in the day I swept with my
telescope from the garrison, as near as I could imagine, the line of
the horizon, but it was so extremely black, fretful, and hazy, that
nothing could be seen, and I was obliged to go to bed that night with
a mortifying uncertainty. But the next morning early, I had great joy
to see that the gilded ball had triumphed over the fury of the storm,
and such an one as I had no conception of. I saw the whole so
distinctly from the bottom to the top, that I could be very sure the
lantern had suffered nothing. It is now my most steady belief, as well
as everybody's here, that its inhabitants are rather more secure in a
storm, under the united force of wind and water, than we are in our
houses from the former only.'

After this trial of the strength of the lighthouse, there seems no
longer to have been any apprehension concerning it. The light-keepers
even became attached to the spot, and found it a remarkably healthy
and comfortable abode. There were often as many as half a dozen
applications for the office, although the salary was only twenty-five
pounds per annum.

One of the light-keepers, after a residence of fourteen years on the
rock, became so much attached to the place, that for two summers he
gave up his turn of going on shore to his companions, and declared his
intention of doing so on the third; but being over-persuaded he went
on shore to take his month's turn. At the lighthouse he had always
been a decent, sober, well-behaved man; but he had no sooner got on
shore than he went to an alehouse and became intoxicated. This he
continued the whole of his stay; which being noticed, he was carried
in an intoxicated state on board the Eddystone boat and delivered in
the lighthouse, where he was expected to grow sober; but after
lingering