Captain's clerk
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A captain's clerk was a rating, now obsolete, in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy for a person employed by the captain to keep his records, correspondence, and accounts.[1] The regulations of the Royal Navy demanded that a purser serve at least one year as a captain's clerk, so the latter was often a young man working his way to a purser's warrant.[2] He had high status, with an office on the quarterdeck or upper deck on most ships. He was paid at the same rate as a midshipman in 1800, but by 1815 he had almost the same monthly pay as a standing warrant officer.[3] On large ships, he had his own cabin in the gunroom, but on smaller vessels he lived with the midshipmen on the orlop deck.[1]