{"id":"01KG8AMEAR5TC5KHV0RJ27SAGH","cid":"bafkreib6n45btegpzrmxt2eru7vuuavkkwx5gpmacwyom7yrvgkktjuisu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1750,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":1689,"text":"to dwarf himself still more, so as to creep in at the touch-hole, and\r\nexamining the whole interior of the tube, emerge at last from the\r\nmuzzle. Quoin swore by his guns, and slept by their side. Woe betide\r\nthe man whom he found leaning against them, or in any way soiling them.\r\nHe seemed seized with the crazy fancy, that his darling\r\ntwenty-four-pounders were fragile, and might break, like glass retorts.\r\n\r\nNow, from this Quoin’s vigilance, how could my poor friend the poet\r\nhope to escape with his box? Twenty times a week it was pounced upon,\r\nwith a “here’s that d——d pillbox again!” and a loud threat, to pitch it\r\noverboard the next time, without a moment’s warning, or benefit of\r\nclergy. Like many poets, Lemsford was nervous, and upon these occasions\r\nhe trembled like a leaf. Once, with an inconsolable countenance, he\r\ncame to me, saying that his casket was nowhere to be found; he had\r\nsought for it in his hiding-place, and it was not there.\r\n\r\nI asked him where he had hidden it?\r\n\r\n“Among the guns,” he replied.\r\n\r\n“Then depend upon it, Lemsford, that Quoin has been the death of it.”\r\n\r\nStraight to Quoin went the poet. But Quoin knew nothing about it. For\r\nten mortal days the poet was not to be comforted; dividing his leisure\r\ntime between cursing Quoin and lamenting his loss. The world is undone,\r\nhe must have thought: no such calamity has befallen it since the\r\nDeluge;—my verses are perished.\r\n\r\nBut though Quoin, as it afterward turned out, had indeed found the box,\r\nit so happened that he had not destroyed it; which no doubt led\r\nLemsford to infer that a superintending Providence had interposed to\r\npreserve to posterity his invaluable casket. It was found at last,\r\nlying exposed near the galley.\r\n\r\nLemsford was not the only literary man on board the Neversink. There\r\nwere three or four persons who kept journals of the cruise. One of\r\nthese journalists embellished his work—which was written in a large\r\nblank account-book—with various coloured illustrations of the harbours\r\nand bays at which the frigate had touched; and also, with small crayon\r\nsketches of comical incidents on board the frigate itself. He would\r\nfrequently read passages of his book to an admiring circle of the more\r\nrefined sailors, between the guns. They pronounced the whole\r\nperformance a miracle of art. As the author declared to them that it\r\nwas all to be printed and published so soon as the vessel reached home,\r\nthey vied with each other in procuring interesting items, to be\r\nincorporated into additional chapters. But it having been rumoured\r\nabroad that this journal was to be ominously entitled “_The Cruise of\r\nthe Neversink, or a Paixhan shot into Naval Abuses;_” and it having\r\nalso reached the ears of the Ward-room that the work contained\r\nreflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity of the officers, the\r\nvolume was seized by the master-at-arms, armed with a warrant from the\r\nCaptain. A few days after, a large nail was driven straight through the\r\ntwo covers, and clinched on the other side, and, thus everlastingly\r\nsealed, the book was committed to the deep. The ground taken by the\r\nauthorities on this occasion was, perhaps, that the book was obnoxious\r\nto a certain clause in the Articles of War, forbidding any person in\r\nthe Navy to bring any other person in the Navy into contempt, which the\r\nsuppressed volume undoubtedly did.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ3MFENWE9QH4GT9XM2M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMEARJ64EYY2JNF1C6A25","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.208Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:43.842Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}