It was at this point that the woman calling herself William Brown undisputedly joined "Queen Charlotte" in 1815. The rating as landsman is anomalously low for a skilled sailor (and would mean a wage cut of nearly 50% for a former top-captain), but the ranking of crew members was controlled by the first lieutenant, and a highly qualified recruit might be assigned this rank due to a clash of personalities, or simply if the officer had no personal knowledge of their true skill level.