Letter from Lieutenant Joseph H. Marryat to his mother, sent from HMS CRACKER near Genitchi in the Sea of Azov, dated 25 August 1855. During the Crimean War Marryat was a lieutenant in command of the wooden screw gunboat HMS CRACKER (1855). From May 1855 onwards the CRACKER was part of a flotilla dispatched into the shallow waters of the Sea of Asov with orders to destroy Russian shipping and stores.