The Great Cabin

The Great Cabin was strictly the domain of the Captain. He used the area as his day cabin, his office and his meeting room. It was a space that no one entered without the Captain's permission. A marine guard posted at the door 24 hours a day saw that this rule was enforced. The Captain of a ship often had to perform diplomatic functions, and the Great Cabin became the meeting room and dining room for these occasions. It was not uncommon for a Captain to invite his officers to dine with him, though he was under no obligation to do so. The Captain's sleeping quarters consisted of a small cabin on the starboard side connected to the Great Cabin.

There are two gun ports in the Great Cabin where two of the ships twenty four nine-pounder guns were mounted, greatly reducing the amount of usable space in the cabin. This also meant that the Great Cabin became a combat station during an engagement and had to be "cleared for action." When the ship was cleared for action the bulkhead, or wall that separates the Great Cabin from the rest of the gun deck, was disassembled and stowed away along with the furniture and any other items not used in combat. The furnishings from the Great Cabin would either be stored down below or placed in one of the ship's boats and set adrift to be collected later (when a ship was cleared for action her boats were generally set adrift or towed to avoid the threat of the splinters caused by enemy shot). The stern of a vessel was an inviting target since there were no guns mounted aft and the Great Cabin windows offered little protection from cannon balls. By the end of an engagement the Great Cabin may well have been a smoldering ruin.

The Captain was the only officer who lived on the level of the gun deck. The other commissioned officers (lieutenants) and warrant officers of wardroom rank (surgeon, sailing master, purser) lived in the Ward Room on the berthing deck directly below the Great Cabin. The Ward Room consisted of a series of small cabins along the sides of the ship with a long dining table in the middle. Lesser warrant officers (the Master Gunner, Boatswain, Carpenter and Sailmaker) lived in the Gun Room amidships on the berthing deck and the midshipmen (officers in training) lived in the midshipman's berth, located wherever there was room.