e
Rock, together with their tools, and carried them
to France, and the Captain was in expectation of a
reward for the achievement. While the captives lay
in prison, the transaction reached the ears of
that monarch. He immediately ordered them to be
released and the captors to be put in their place:
declaring that though he was at war with England,
he was not at war with mankind. He therefore
directed the men to be sent back to their work
with presents, observing that the Eddystone
Lighthouse was so situated as to be of equal
service to all nations having occasion to navigate
the Channel."

A lightship is as peaceful and immobile as the granite blockstones of a
lighthouse. She requires an even greater protection, exposed as she is
to dangers on the sea that do not threaten the landward structure. She
is incapable of offence or defence. Unarmed, save for the signal-gun
that is only used to warn a vessel from the sands or to summon
assistance to a ship in distress, she can offer no resistance to a show
of force. She is moored to withstand the strongest gales, and cannot
readily disengage her heavy ground-tackle. She has no efficient means of
propulsion; parted from her stout anchors, she would drive helplessly on
to the very shoals she had been set to guard. To all seafarers, in war
as in peace, she should appeal as a sea-mark to be spared and protected;
in the service of humanity, she is exposed to danger enough--to the
furious gales from which she may not run.

Unlike the Grand Monarch, the Germans are bitterly at war with mankind.
As one of their first war acts at sea, they shelled the Ostend
Lightship. Like the Lamb, she was using the water; the Wolf would suffer
no protestation of her innocency. Was she not floating placidly on the
same tides that served the German coast?

In view of his subsequent atrocities in torpedoing hospital ships and
shelling rafts and open boats, it is probable that our light-vessels
would have been similarly destroyed by the enemy, but that his submarine
commanders found under-water navigation required as accurate a check as
in coasting on the surface. The fury of the Wolf was, in his own
interest, tardily suppressed. He recognized that the value of the
lightships in establishing a definite position was an asset to him.
Withal--his 'fix' decided--he had no qu