Thus Mr. Winstanley's lighthouse was completed in 1700, and though destined to remain but a short time, it was a most important and heroic step accomplished. Mankind were now convinced that the erection of a building upon the Eddystone rocks was not an impracticable thing, though long deemed so; and if experience now proved that the shock of the surges was augmented, by the interposition of the building, to a furious extent, it also led the way to further trials and expedients to counteract that shock.
In November 1703 Mr. Winstanley went down to Plymouth to superintend some repairs that had become necessary to the lighthouse; and when he was about to proceed with his workmen to the spot, some of his friends, convinced from the structure of the lighthouse that it could not last long, ventured to intimate their suspicions to him, and to warn him of danger. His reply was, that he felt so convinced of the strength of his building, that he only wished he might be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of heaven, that he might see what effect it would have upon the structure. It is painful to record this presumptuous wish, and still more so to relate its fulfilment.
Mr. Winstanley with his work-people and light-keepers had taken up their abode at the lighthouse, when a dreadful storm began, and in the night of the 26th of November reached a terrific height. Indeed of all the accounts which history furnishes of storms in Great Britain, none is to be found of a more awful and devastating nature than this. Plymouth itself suffered severely; and when morning came, and the height of the tempest was past, there was an eager look out in the direction of the lighthouse, to see what injury it might have sustained. But the waters rushed on over the Eddystone rocks, no longer impeded by the lofty structure that had been reared with such pains and cost. Winstanley, his work-people, his light-keepers, his boasted structure--all had been swept away by the resistless fury of the winds and waves; and not only this, but a homeward-bound vessel, the 'Winchelsea,' deprived of the warning light that might have averted her fate, struck upon these rocks, and lost nearly her whole crew. This lamentable event is detailed in most of the public papers of the day; and the loss to the nation, as it respected Winstanley himself, who was deemed the only person able to reconstruct the edifice, deeply deplored.