All knew how to handle a ship.

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 137.

An American man-of-war was no less a ranked society than was any navy’s in the world, but the moral distance between officers and men was closer on many scores—a difference that on repeated occasions would prove a hidden strength in the fighting ability of the American navy. Half the men on a typical British warship of the year 1812 had been impressed, and another eighth were the none-too-voluntary “volunteers” who had chosen service in the navy over rotting away in the county jail or worse; in all, probably only a quarter of the crew of a British ship were there in any sense of their own free will. The “quota men” delivered up from the county jails were said to be the worst of them all, demoralizing the rest of the crew with their shirking and thieving, breeding seething resentments over the bounties of as much as £70 apiece they had received, bringing harsh discipline down on the whole ship for their misdeeds. “Them was the chaps as played hell with the fleet!” said one old British tar. “Every grass-combing beggar as chose to bear up for the bounty.… Every finger was fairly a fish-hook: neither chest nor bed nor blanket nor bag escaped their slight-of-hand.”47 The lists of punishments aboard British ships on the American station for two months in the summer of 1812 go on page after page: striking the sergeant of marines, 48 lashes; desertion and running away with the boat, 36 lashes; pissing in the manger and skulking, 24 lashes; theft and mutinous behavior, 36 lashes; contempt, 24 lashes; striking his superior, 36 lashes; drunkenness, 42 lashes; mutinous behavior, 60 lashes; neglect of duty, 36 lashes.

By contrast the men of an American warship were all genuine volunteers, enlisted freely for a term of two years. An able seaman was paid $12 a month in the American navy versus $8 in the Royal Navy. Charles Morris noted that many American recruits brought with them practical skills in carpentry or blacksmithing or other trades, along with a general air of self-reliance.

Nearly all the captains of the American navy of 1812 were under age forty. All had done something to earn their rank beyond the circumstances of their birth or their family influence. All knew how to handle a ship.