Research reading notebook · 3 November 2026

Reading an incomplete archive

Follow a passage, compare its appearances, and inspect what the surviving record can—and cannot—show. This notebook opens evidence for interpretation, with the selection and counting choices visible.

A bounded study of newspapers in 1797, plus a documented case of institutional citation. The material is historical; automated matching and topic labels are exploratory.

Start with what is present

1,587model-eligible newspaper pages
398observed issues / editions
8newspaper series in this year

The coverage is uneven. A blank in the archive is not evidence that nothing happened, or that nothing was published. The plot includes only pages eligible for this model.

Monthly eligible-page counts by newspaper series in 1797
Each cell counts surviving eligible pages in this dataset, not readers or total historical newspaper production.

Keep more than one way of counting

Every publication preserves an appearance of the text. Discounting later matched wording asks a different question: how much do these curves depend on repetition?

The main setting discounts 6.28% of observed word positions. This is an algorithmic sensitivity check, not a population reprint rate. Shared wording can belong to news, official documents, speeches, notices or tables.
Four monthly topic signals comparing all publications with three text-match discount settings
The band spans three chosen detection settings. It is not a confidence interval. Same-day copies remain in all scenarios; the topic model is held fixed.

Under the main setting, the shipping peak moves from October to September; the European-politics peak moves from April to May. Neither curve measures society's actual attention. Short passages and noisy OCR can fail the matching rules.

A reported seizure enters an official record

The brig Peace case connects two newspaper versions to an explicit citation in a government report. Its outcome remains unestablished. Dates below describe different kinds of records.

A revealing limitation in the original report. Pickering explained that newspapers supplemented missing official papers. The report says the editors had not systematically collected every capture account and acknowledges the lack of a comparable re-examination for British captures. Its own evidence boundary is part of the story.
Read the two newspaper passages and the official report scan
Previously checked Gazette of the United States passage
18 May 1797 · Gazette of the United States · previously checked crop.
Previously checked New Hampshire Gazette passage with added annotation
30 May 1797 · New Hampshire Gazette · added annotation attributed to Mercury.
Official report printed page 29 explaining use and limitations of newspapers
Printed p.29 · Report dated 21 June 1797 · consulted 1832 compilation.
Printed page 62 with the Peace item citing Gazette of the United States, May 18
Printed p.62, item19 · Explicit newspaper citation, not a second independent witness.
Four later publications with unresolved vessel identity

Additional search: 24,982 pages dated 1796–1805; 106 candidates. These four passages were checked against scans but are not merged into a confirmed outcome.

1797-07-17 · P031

Peace, Allen, of Providence, listed at Surinam on June 11. The scan supports the name, master surname, home port and Surinam listing. This is a plausible continuation lead; it neither states a release from Cayenne nor establishes the identity beyond doubt.

Inspected later publication P031

1797-09-02 · P032

Crew of Peace of Providence reported after a capture homeward from Surinam. The scan supports the place and route, but does not name the master or connect the capture to the May Cayenne account. Keep as a possible continuation, not a confirmed second capture of the same vessel.

Inspected later publication P032

1797-09-08 · P033

Peace, Allen, of New York, reported captured from Martinique. The port and route differ from the May account. Matching name and surname alone do not resolve vessel identity.

Inspected later publication P033

1797-09-11 · P034

Corresponding Peace/Allen/New York account appears again. The scan repeats the Porto Rico condemnation account, with Martinico as the departure place. This is another publication, not an independent confirmation or an established continuation of the Cayenne case.

Inspected later publication P034

Case ledger and relation types · Additional search and dispositions

Compare the passages yourself

The default list contains examples inspected as normalized text, plus previously reviewed case comparisons. Switch to all candidates to inspect the full output. These pairs have not all been checked against scans.

The matching excerpts below are lowercased word tokens. Digits and punctuation are omitted. Use the linked original page to check dates, amounts and wording; equal matching text does not establish equal factual claims.