People like Frederick Marryat

Captain Frederick Marryat (10 July 1792 – 9 August 1848) was a Royal Navy officer, a novelist, and an acquaintance of Charles Dickens. He is noted today as an early pioneer of nautical fiction, particularly for his semi-autobiographical novel Mr Midshipman Easy (1836). He is remembered also for his children's novel The Children of the New Forest (1847), and for a widely used system of maritime flag signalling known as Marryat's Code.

Marryat was born in Great George Street, Westminster, London, the son of Joseph Marryat, a "merchant prince" and member of Parliament, as well as slave owner and anti-abolitionist, and his American wife, Charlotte, née von Geyer. Marryat tried to run away to sea several times before he was permitted to enter the Royal Navy in 1806 as a midshipman aboard HMS Imperieuse, a frigate commanded by Lord Cochrane, who later served as inspiration for Marryat and other authors.