1700s - cabin boys and other indentures

I'm having some problem but I'm not sure it's not self-induced...

When people signed on as an indentured servant to someone migrating to
what is now the US ... how old would they have had to be?

If a 5-year-old turns up over here is it more likely he was an
indentured servant or a cabin-boy on his uncle's ship?

Don Phillipson...

Be warned that throughout the 18th century it was
common for naval officers to inscribe child relatives
on the muster rolls of a ship so as to draw their pay,
and nobody expected 5-year-olds actually to serve.
See Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves: How the
British Navy Shaped the Modern World (2004.)
Samuel Pepys did this and so did Captain Cook.

singhals...

Even that might help. (g) The kid turns up over here, and he stayed.
How'd that happen?

Charani...

Is the age right? Five seems a little young, even for then, to be a
cabin boy or indentured servant.

singhals...

Who knows? The story is that he arrived as an indentured servant, but
he'd've been 14 or 15 MAX, more likely 5 or 6 -- depending on whether
he was over 100 or only 89 when he died in the 1790s. I'm not finding
the baptism anyplace. :(

Charani...

I would have thought that 89 or there abouts was more likely than 100+
but he might have made old bones. Maybe the lad travelled with his
uncle but was given a role on the ship to keep him occupied.