Royal Exchange was hired for convoy service, but her multilingual and often very young company believed it remained outside normal naval rules. Duncan's short and difficult appointment demonstrated that flagging a merchant ship was not enough to create a workable warship. Language barriers compounded the uncertainty over who could issue orders and what rules the company had accepted. The Navy's later solution was to ensure that crews of hired vessels were naval personnel under naval discipline.
Notable Point · 28:07-30:04
The failed manning experiment aboard Royal Exchange
Duncan's awkward first command exposed the risks of hiring a merchant vessel without a crew clearly subject to naval discipline.