Children aboard fighting ships in the age of sail

Would sailors hesitate to fight a boarding party led by a child?

Not necessarily, because the opposing ship could also contain powder monkeys, boy sailors, captain's servants, and midshipmen of similar ages.

Both ships in a boarding action could contain children as part of their ordinary complements. Powder monkeys might be only five or six, boy sailors could enter in their early teens, and young gentlemen served as midshipmen or captain's servants. A teenage junior officer leading sailors was not necessarily confronting an exclusively adult enemy crew. The image of two young swordsmen belongs to a broader shipboard labor system that exposed children to naval combat.