Capt. Frederick Marryat 
King’s Own 

After his father is hanged during the mutiny at the Nore (1797), William Seymour grows up on board a ship in the Royal Navy and later is impressed into the crew of a daring smuggler. This amusing and exciting novel blends in the classic true tale of an English captain who deliberately lost his frigate on a lee shore in order to wreck a French line-of-battle ship.