top of the building, three cheers were given in testimony of

this important circumstance. A glass of rum was then served
out to all hands on the rock and on board of the respective

ships.
[Sunday, 16th July]

Besides laying, boring, trenailing, wedging, and grouting
thirty-two stones, several other operations were proceeded

with on the rock at low-water, when some of the artificers
were employed at the railways, and at high-water at the

beacon-house. The seamen having prepared a quantity of
tarpaulin, or cloth laid over with successive coats of hot

tar, the joiners had just completed the covering of the roof
with it. This sort of covering was lighter and more easily

managed than sheet-lead in such a situation. As a further
defence against the weather the whole exterior of this

temporary residence was painted with three coats of white-lead
paint. Between the timber framing of the habitable part of

the beacon the interstices were to be stuffed with moss, as a
light substance that would resist dampness and check sifting

winds; the whole interior was then to be lined with green
baize cloth, so that both without and within the cabins were

to have a very comfortable appearance.
Although the building artificers generally remained on

the rock throughout the day, and the millwrights, joiners, and
smiths, while their number was considerable, remained also

during the night, yet the tender had hitherto been considered
as their night quarters. But the wind having in the course of

the day shifted to the N.W., and as the passage to the tender,
in the boats, was likely to be attended with difficulty, the

whole of the artificers, with Mr. Logan, the foreman,
preferred remaining all night on the beacon, which had of late

become the solitary abode of George-Forsyth, a jobbing
upholsterer, who had been employed in lining the beacon-house

with cloth and in fitting up the bedding. Forsyth was a tall,
thin, and rather loose-made man, who had an utter aversion at

climbing upon the trap-ladders of the beacon, but especially
at the process of boating, and the motion of the ship, which

he said `was death itself.' He therefore pertinaciously
insisted with the landing-master in being left upon the

beacon, with a small black dog as his only companion. The
writer, however, felt some delicacy in leaving a single

individual upon the rock, who must have been so very helpless
in case of accident. This fabric had, from the beginning,

been rather intended by the writer to guard against accident
from the loss or damage of a boat, and as a place for making

mortar, a smith's shop, and a store for tools during the
working months, than as permanent quarters; nor was it at all

meant to be possessed until tile joiner-work was completely
finished, and his own cabin, and that for the foreman, in

readiness, when it was still to be left to the choice of the
artificers to occupy the tender or the beacon. He, however,

considered Forsyth's partiality and confidence in the latter
as rather a fortunate occurrence.

[Wednesday, 19th July]
The whole of the artificers, twenty-three in number, now

removed of their own accord from the tender, to lodge in the
beacon, together with Peter Fortune, a person singularly

adapted for a residence of this kind, both from the urbanity
of his manners and the versatility of his talents. Fortune,

in his person, was of small stature, and rather corpulent.
Besides being a good Scots cook, he had acted both as groom

and house-servant; he had been a soldier, a sutler, a writer's
clerk, and an apothecary, from which he possessed the art of

writing and suggesting recipes, and had hence, also, perhaps,
acquired a turn for making collections in natural history.

But in his practice in surgery on the Bell Rock, for which he
received an annual fee of three guineas, he is supposed to

have been rather partial to the use of the lancet. In short,
Peter was the FACTOTUM of the beacon-house, where he

ostensibly acted in the several capacities of cook, steward,
surgeon, and barber, and kept a statement of the rations or

expenditure of the provisions with the strictest integrity.
In the present important state of the building, when it

had just attained the height of sixteen feet, and the upper
courses, and especially the imperfect one, were in the wash of

the heaviest seas, an express boat arrived at the rock with a
letter from Mr. Kennedy, of the workyard, stating that in

consequence of the intended expedition to Walcheren, an
embargo had been laid on shipping at all the ports of Great

Britain: that both the SMEATON and PATRIOT were detained at
Arbroath, and that but for the proper view which Mr. Ramsey,

the port officer, had taken of his orders, neither the express
boat nor one which had been sent with provisions and

necessaries for the floating light would have been permitted
to leave the harbour. The writer set off without delay for

Arbroath, and on landing used every possible means with the
official people, but their orders were deemed so peremptory

that even boats were not permitted to sail from any port upon
the coast. In the meantime, the collector of the Customs at

Montrose applied to the Board at Edinburgh, but could, of
himself, grant no relief to the Bell Rock shipping.

At this critical period Mr. Adam Duff, then Sheriff of
Forfarshire, now of the county of Edinburgh, and EX OFFICIO

one of the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses, happened
to be at Arbroath. Mr. Duff took an immediate interest in

representing the circumstances of the case to the Board of
Customs at Edinburgh. But such were the doubts entertained on

the subject that, on having previously received the appeal
from the collector at Montrose, the case had been submitted to

the consideration of the Lords of the Treasury, whose decision
was now waited for.

In this state of things the writer felt particularly
desirous to get the thirteenth course finished, that the

building might be in a more secure state in the event of bad
weather. An opportunity was thereforeembraced on the 25th,

in sailing with provisions for the floating light, to carry
the necessary stones to the rock for this purpose, which were

landed and built on the 26th and 27th. But so closely was the
watch kept up that a Custom-house officer was always placed on

board of the SMEATON and PATRIOT while they were afloat, till
the embargo was especially removed from the lighthouse

vessels. The artificers at the Bell Rock had been reduced to
fifteen, who were regularly supplied with provisions, along

with the crew of the floating light, mainly through the port
officer's liberalinterpretation of his orders.

[Tuesday, 1st Aug.]
There being a considerable swell and breach of sea upon

the rock yesterday, the stones could not be got landed till
the day following, when the wind shifted to the southward and

the weather improved. But to-day no less than seventy-eight
blocks of stone were landed, of which forty were built, which

completed the fourteenth and part of the fifteenth courses.
The number of workmen now resident in the beacon-house was

augmented to twenty-four, including the landing-master's crew
from the tender and the boat's crew from the floating light,

who assisted at landing the stones. Those daily at work upon
the rock at this period amounted to forty-six. A cabin had