I am watching Master & Commander (the Russel Crowe movie) and one thing that has struck me is that several of the officers on the ship are children. While I did know that children often served in Napoleonic navies as powder monkeys and the like, I was wondering if having children officers something that happened and, if so, if it was common.
The portrayal of midshipmen in Master and Commander is not exaggerated; they did exist, and they could have been as young as 11 or 12 years old. Plenty more at that link, and I wrote about the overall organization of the officer corps here.