when they existed, and the tower on the Mull of Kintyre
stood eleven months unlighted while the apparatus toiled and foundered
by the way among rocks and mosses. Not only had towers to be built and
apparatus transplanted, the supply of oil must be maintained, and the
men fed, in the same inaccessible and distant scenes; a whole service,
with its routine and hierarchy, had to be called out of nothing; and a
new trade (that of lightkeeper) to be taught, recruited, and organised.
The funds of the Board were at the first laughably inadequate. They
embarked on their career on a loan of twelve hundred pounds, and their
income in 1789, after relief by a fresh Act of Parliament, amounted to
less than three hundred. It must be supposed that the thoughts of Thomas
Smith, in these early years, were sometimes coloured with despair; and
since he built and lighted one tower after another, and created and
bequeathed to his successors the elements of an excellent
administration, it may be conceded that he was not after all an
unfortunate choice for a first engineer.

War added fresh complications. In 1794 Smith came "very near to be
taken" by a French squadron. In 1813 Robert Stevenson was cruising about
the neighbourhood of Cape Wrath in the immediate fear of Commodore
Rogers. The men, and especially the sailors, of the lighthouse service
must be protected by a medal and ticket from the brutal activity of the
press-gang. And the zeal of volunteer patriots was at times
embarrassing.

"I set off on foot," writes my grandfather, "for Marazion, a town at
the head of Mount's Bay, where I was in hopes of getting a boat to
freight. I had just got that length, and was making the necessary
inquiry, when a young man, accompanied by several idle-looking
fellows, came up to me, and in a hasty tone said, 'Sir, in the king's
name I seize your person and papers.' To which I replied that I
should be glad to see his authority, and know the reason of an
address so abrupt. He told me the want of time prevented his taking
regular steps, but that it would be necessary for me to return to
Penzance, as I was suspected of being a French spy. I proposed to
submit my papers to the nearest Justice of Peace, who was immediately
applied to, and came to the inn where I was. He seemed to be greatly
agitated, and quite at a loss how to proceed. The complaint preferred
against me was 'that I had examined the Longships Lighth