{"id":"01KG6G84WSGGSZAKSF4Z6PRTEE","cid":"bafkreibbgygbqpve52ut6fgyc5ebnnnh32s5a57ztebpbtg5ecma7htyya","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1119,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":1053,"text":"into oblivion, lends colour to something for the truth whereof I do not\r\nvouch, and hence have some scruple in stating; something I remember\r\nhaving seen in print, though the book I cannot recall; but the same\r\nthing was personally communicated to me now more than forty years ago by\r\nan old pensioner in a cocked hat, with whom I had a most interesting\r\ntalk on the terrace at Greenwich, a Baltimore negro, a Trafalgar man. It\r\nwas to this effect: In the case of a warship short of hands, whose\r\nspeedy sailing was imperative, the deficient quota, in lack of any other\r\nway of making it good, would be eked out by drafts called direct from\r\nthe jails. For reasons previously suggested it would not perhaps be easy\r\nat the present day directly to prove or disprove the allegation. But\r\nallowed as a verity, how significant would it be of England’s straits at\r\nthe time, confronted by these wars which like a flight of harpies rose\r\nshrieking from the din and dust of the fallen Bastille. That era appears\r\nmeasurably clear to us who look back at it, and but read of it. But to\r\nthe grandfathers of us graybeards, the thoughtful of them, the genius of\r\nit presented an aspect like that of Camoens’ ‘Spirit of the Cape,’ an\r\neclipsing menace mysterious and prodigious. Not America was exempt from\r\napprehension. At the height of Napoleon’s unexampled conquests, there\r\nwere Americans who had fought at Bunker Hill who looked forward to the\r\npossibility that the Atlantic might prove no barrier against the\r\nultimate schemes of this portentous upstart from the revolutionary\r\nchaos, who seemed in act of fulfilling judgment prefigured in the\r\nApocalypse.\r\n\r\nBut the less credence was to be given to the gun-deck talk touching\r\nClaggart, seeing that no man holding his office in a man-of-war can ever\r\nhope to be popular with the crew. Besides, in derogatory comments upon\r\none against whom they have a grudge, or for any reason or no reason\r\nmislike, sailors are much like landsmen, they are apt to exaggerate or\r\nromance.\r\n\r\nAbout as much was really known to the _Indomitable’s_ tars of the\r\nmaster-at-arms’ career before entering the service as an astronomer\r\nknows about a comet’s travels prior to its first observable appearance\r\nin the sky. The verdict of the sea-quidnuncs has been cited only by way\r\nof showing what sort of moral impression the man made upon rude\r\nuncultivated natures, whose conceptions of human wickedness were\r\nnecessarily of the narrowest, limited to ideas of vulgar rascality--a\r\nthief among the swinging hammocks during a night-watch, or the\r\nman-brokers and land-sharks of the seaports.\r\n\r\nIt was no gossip, however, but fact, that though, as before hinted,\r\nClaggart upon his entrance into the navy was, as a novice, assigned to\r\nthe least honourable section of a man-of-war’s crew, embracing the\r\ndrudges, he did not long remain there.\r\n\r\nThe superior capacity he immediately evinced, his constitutional\r\nsobriety, ingratiating deference to superiors, together with a peculiar\r\nferreting genius manifested on a singular occasion, all this capped by a\r\ncertain austere patriotism, abruptly advanced him to the position of\r\nmaster-at-arms.\r\n\r\nOf this maritime chief of police the ship’s corporals, so called, were\r\nthe immediate subordinates, and compliant ones; and this, as is to be\r\nnoted in some business departments ashore, almost to a degree\r\ninconsistent with entire moral volition. His place put various\r\nconverging wires of underground influence under the chief’s control,\r\ncapable when astutely worked through his understrappers of operating to\r\nthe mysterious discomfort, if nothing worse, of any of the\r\nsea-commonalty.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6NZTCSGTD5KAEYAKVECN","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G84WSARA1YYSPZN0KH6Z8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.921Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:24.427Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}