Plymouth Breakwater Almost two million tons of stone Are in the mighty ocean thrown, Which forms a wall that does restrain The current of the dreaded main, That vessels may in safety ride, And not be delug´d with the tide, And though the work is incomplete, Its benefits are very great; What is already done repels The raging ocean when it swells; Which, as a means, it is believ´d Has Seamen oft from death retrievd. In 1822 when William Gadsby penned his lines the breakwater was already a tourist attraction with the good pastor spending six hours or more with friends upon that Great National Undertaking on 30 th January of that year. [i] Charles Dupin (1784-1873) had visited the edifice three years before and was similarly impressed: he wrote: “After having exhausted everything most useful and most ingenious offered to me by France, considered in a maritime point of view, I turned my eyes towards a people who for a century past have held the sce