As one of the people who examined the original records during the
editing of volume three of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, I wish
to point out that some of what has been written about that episode is
extrapolation from the few known facts.

There is no trial record. There is one set of depositions. Some men who
the next year raised questions about the fairness of the governor's
proceedings (either the governor and Council acting in their capacity as
a Quarter Court or perhaps the governor acting as a judge of admiralty,
inasmuch as the offense was reported to have taken place onboard a ship)
got punished for impugning the character and standing of the government,
not for making the results of the trial public. In fact, Cornish's
brother was reportedly discussing the case with other marriners in
Canadian waters, so it wasn't a secret

That's virtually all there is. The original records are part of the
General Court Records in the Thomas Jefferson Papers in the Library of
Congress, and with the exception of the one transcription error about
the age of the victim, the texts are accurately printed in H.R.
McIlwaine, ed., Minutes of the Council and General Court, 2d ed. (1979),
34, 42, 78, 81, 83, 85, 93.

A reexamination of the meager known facts suggests that the episode
might profit from some careful reconsideration, inasmuch as the victim
was 19 years old and might therefore have been (as Murrin points out in
his contribution to the DVB, 3:471-473) in a more vulnerable underling
capacity that if he had been 29 years old.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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