After this accident difficulty was experienced in getting the men to turn out next morning, as related in the following extract:--
“The bell rung this morning at five o’clock, but the writer must acknowledge, from the circumstances of yesterday, that its sound was extremely unwelcome. This appears also to have been the feeling of the artificers, for when they came to be mustered, out of twenty-six, only eight, besides the foreman and seamen, appeared upon deck, to accompany the writer to the rock. Such are the baneful effects of anything like misfortune or accident connected with a work of this description. The use of argument to persuade the men to embark, in cases of this kind, would have been out of place, as it is not only discomfort, or even the risk of the loss of a limb, but life itself, that becomes the question. The boats, notwithstanding the thinness of our ranks, left the vessel at half-past five. The rough weather of yesterday having proved but a summer’s gale, the wind came to-day in gentle breezes, yet the atmosphere being cloudy, it had not a very favourable appearance. The boats reached the rock at six A.M., and the eight artificers who landed were employed in clearing out the bat-holes for the beacon-house, and had a prosperous tide of four hours’ work, being the longest yet experienced by half an hour.
“The boats left the rock again at ten o’clock, and the weather having cleared up, as we drew near the vessel, the eighteen artificers who remained on board were observed upon deck, but as the boats approached they sought their way below, being quite ashamed of their conduct. This was the only instance of refusal to go to the rock which occurred during the whole progress of the work.”
The state of suffering and discomfort, as well as danger, on board the floating light, which lay moored off the rock during the first two seasons of the work, before the timber beacon was used as a habitation, is described, in the following passage, which presents a striking illustration of the continual anxiety that must have existed in the minds of those engaged in the work, and of the frequent calls for energetic and courageous exertion:--
“Although the weather would have admitted of a landing this evening, yet the swell of the sea, observable in the morning, still continued to increase. It was so far fortunate that a landing was not attempted, for at eight o’clock the wind shifted to E.S.E., and at ten it had become a hard gale, when fifty fathoms of the floating-light’s hempen cable were veered out. The gale still increasing, the ship rolled and laboured excessively, and at midnight eighty fathoms of cable were veered out; while the sea continued to strike the vessel with a degree of force which had not before been experienced.