Thank you Henry. I like you was just thinking off the top of my head. I shall check that site out. After I posted that little blurb, I went surfing to see what I could find and I get mixed info.
One site (www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq78-3.htm) says that the Captains clerk was established in 1798 and disestablished in 1835. The problem here as you can see, if that is correct, the job did not exist by the time of TWBS. Another site I forgot to write the URL of says that the position of Clerk was a Warrant position but gives no date of the establishing of the rate or job or when it ended. Also after my post it occoured to me that the rate of this person coud be a Yoeman. In any case he had to be literate.
Frank