This chapter serves as the previous chapter's quarterdeck companion. It approaches the strategic issue of securing adequate manpower in the context of the officers rather than the men of the lower deck. But it does not examine all officers, despite using the term quarterdeck – the ‘grand promenade of all the officers of the first class’, which could include not only the lieutenants but also the purser, surgeon, master and chaplain. There is not sufficient space to survey the labour market for all sea officers. For this chapter, the quarterdeck stands as a contrast with the lower deck explored in the previous chapter, and it refers only to the officers who were seamen and navigators: the commissioned officers and master. Thus the ‘quarterdeck manpower problem’ of the title is the imbalance in the labour market for commissioned officers and masters.

Unlike the problem on the lower deck, described in the previous chapter as a persistent shortage of able seamen, the problem for naval administrators on the quarterdeck was a surplus of commissioned officers and a shortage of masters. Officers were not subject to impressment, of course, so naval administrators had to devise strategies to attract masters to the navy, while also coping with a significant waste of manpower resources. Admittedly, the stakes were lower: failing to man the fleet would have had catastrophic consequences, while leaving a few thousand officers ashore on half-pay was unlikely to play a significant role in shaping the outcome of conflicts. For this reason, manning and impressment have received a good deal of scholarly attention, but few historians have attempted to grapple with employment prospects on the quarterdeck. But a shortage of masters was a serious problem. Examining the labour market for commissioned officers and masters demonstrates how naval administrators’ strategic choices were constrained by contemporary notions of social status – a concern often overlooked by historians of administration and strategy. After providing some background on the similarities between masters and lieutenants, the chapter discusses the supply of and demand for officers before concluding with the Admiralty's response to the imbalance in the labour market and its strategic consequences.