Cornelius Essex

Cornelius Essex (died 1680) was an English buccaneer who took part in Captain Bartholomew Sharp's privateering expedition, the "Pacific Adventure", during the late 1670s.

Although much of his early life is unknown, he is first recorded being brought with his ship, the Great Dolphin, to Port Royal by HMS Hunter in November 1679 and tried with twenty of his crew for "riotously comporting themselves" as well as charges of looting the plantation of a Major Samuel Jenck's of St. James' parish for which two men were sentenced to death. Essex, as did the other Captains, held a commission by the Jamaican government that granted them permission to cut logwood in Honduras and left Port Morant in December 1679 with Captain John Coxon, Robert Allison, Thomas Mackett, Jean Rose and a Captain Bournano and rendezvoused at the Isles of Pines near eastern Panama shortly after.