able, but the truth is that, among the
crew of a man-of-war, scores of desperadoes are too often found, who
stop not at the largest enormities. A species of highway robbery is not
unknown to them. A _gang_ will be informed that such a fellow has three
or four gold pieces in the money-bag, so-called, or purse, which many
tars wear round their necks, tucked out of sight. Upon this, they
deliberately lay their plans; and in due time, proceed to carry them
into execution. The man they have marked is perhaps strolling along the
benighted berth-deck to his mess-chest; when of a sudden, the foot-pads
dash out from their hiding-place, throw him down, and while two or
three gag him, and hold him fast, another cuts the bag from his neck,
and makes away with it, followed by his comrades. This was more than
once done in the Neversink.

At other times, hearing that a sailor has something valuable secreted
in his hammock, they will rip it open from underneath while he sleeps,
and reduce the conjecture to a certainty.

To enumerate all the minor pilferings on board a man-of-war would be
endless. With some highly commendable exceptions, they rob from one
another, and rob back again, till, in the matter of small things, a
community of goods seems almost established; and at last, as a whole,
they become relatively honest, by nearly every man becoming the
reverse. It is in vain that the officers, by threats of condign
punishment, endeavour to instil more virtuous principles into their
crew; so thick is the mob, that not one thief in a thousand is detected.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PURSUIT OF POETRY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

The feeling of insecurity concerning one's possessions in the
Neversink, which the things just narrated begat in the minds of honest
men, was curiously exemplified in the case of my poor friend Lemsford,
a gentlemanly young member of the After-Guard. I had very early made
the acquaintance of Lemsford. It is curious, how unerringly a man
pitches upon a spirit, any way akin to his own, even in the most
miscellaneous mob.

Lemsford was a poet; so thoroughly inspired with the divine afflatus,
that not even all the tar and tumult of a man-of-war could drive it out
of him.

As may readily be imagined, the business of writing verse is a very
different thing on the gun-deck of a frigate, from what the gentle and
sequestered Wordsworth found it at placid Rydal Mount in Westmoreland.
In a frigate, you cannot sit down and me