"The Borough" is made up of twenty-four letters which illustrate various aspects of a small fishing village.
"What I thought I could best describe," Crabbe says, "that I attempted: the sea, and the country in the immediate vicinity; the dwellings and the inhabitants; some incidents and characters, with an exhibition of morals and manners, offensive perhaps to those of extremely delicate feelings, but sometimes, I hope, neither unamiable nor unaffecting."
Of Peter Grimes, Crabbe says,
"The mind here exhibited is one untouched by pity, unstung by remorse, and uncorrected by shame; yet is this hardihood of temper and spirit broken by want, disease, solitude, and disappointment, and he becomes the victim of a distempered and horror-stricken fancy."