Captain Boteler (1796-1885) came from a naval family, entering the navy as a Volunteer, First Class in 1808, was made lieutenant in September 1815, commander in 1830 and captain in 1851. He left the navy in 1830. These recollections, full of well-told naval anecdote, were written in old age, and published only for private circulation. They can be considered accurate, though dates are sometimes unclear.

Boteler describes his service in the Baltic between 1809 and 1812, though there was an intervening period in the Channel and the North Sea before he returned to the Baltic late in the Napoleonic War. He served after the war in Gibraltar and on the Jamaica station, engaged in the suppression of piracy, and then more generally in the West Indies. Boteler quotes a detailed contemporary account of the battle of Navarino, 1827.