| Description | Scope and Content
Firstly and dated 4 Nov 1870, there are 105 quartrains of doggerel marked "Original", apparently describing the loss of the Struggler. in the middle of quatrain 40 is interposed an eleven line poem called "Wreck' d". At the end of the 105th quatrain there follows, in a different hand, a repetition of the second half of quatrain 94 to 105, and ending "Last of February 1871 been here since 4th 4th of Nov 1870". The narrative concerning the shipwrecked crew is cut short here but the manuscript continues in (apparently) other hands with seven poems of various lengths and styles, the first untitled followed by "Words of a Friend", "The Moon", "The Frozen Ship", "The Sea", "Beside the Sea" and "A Cape Horn Burial". |