‘Vanishingly rare’ copy of US Declaration of Independence found by volunteer in UK archives | National Archives

It was a “boring old Thursday morning” for Michael Scurr, a volunteer at the National Archives at Kew, west London, in late May when he sat down to catalog a collection of documents from Britain’s national collection that had never before been recorded in detail.

But as Scurr opened a volume of 18th-century Royal Navy correspondence, he opened a document whose opening words he remembered. “In Congress, July 4, 1776. Declaration of the representatives of the United States…”

What Scurr found was a “lost rare” copy of the first printing of the US Declaration of Independence, just weeks before the 250th anniversary of its signing this weekend. He turned to his superior sitting across from him and said: “I think you should come and take a look at this.” He said it was “a really exciting moment.”

The document is a copy of the so-called Exeter edition of the declaration, one of 11 surviving copies and the only copy known outside the United States. What makes it particularly remarkable, according to Graham Moore, a records expert at the National Archives, is the “surprisingly complete story” of how it came into the hands of the Royal Navy and what this says about how news of the declaration spread as the new nation sought to assert its autonomy.

The document was discovered among a set of papers taken from the American privateer ship Dalton, after it was captured by a British warship off the coast of Spain in December 1776. Although other important documents were forwarded to the Admiralty Court, including a commission of privately owned ships signed by John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, to attack British ships on behalf of the fledgling United States, the declaration was not. Instead it would be recorded as just “another document” and forgotten in the naval archives for more than two centuries.

The modest piece of paper was printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, between July 16 and 19; This was the time it took for news of the bold declaration first signed in Philadelphia on July 4th to spread. These “expansions,” as printers in other major cities have blathered on about, said these “expansions” were “designed to be printed quickly, distributed quickly, and read and consumed by as many people as possible in the shortest possible time,” Moore said. “This is about the news from 1776.”

Although the Dalton did not dock at Exeter, Moore said the ship’s captain, Eleazer Johnson, may have purchased a copy of the declaration in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the ship stopped briefly to pick up more crew.

Johnson was a determined American: After his capture, he declared to a court in Plymouth, United Kingdom, that he was a United States citizen, still considered a treason by the Crown. Legal records keeper Amanda Bevan said she liked to imagine the captain reading the document out loud on deck. “There’s a beautiful image of Eleazar Johnson on the ship… potentially reading the declaration of independence to his crew of 120 people from different countries and saying: ‘That’s why we do this, that’s why we risk our lives, that’s why we’re heading out into the ocean to try our luck again.’”

American privateers were mandated by Congress to “attack, seize, and seize vessels and other vessels belonging to the inhabitants of Great Britain”; In fact, Dalton was the first American pirate captured in European waters.

Thanks to other documents in the national collection and elsewhere, we know what happened next; including the published diary of one of the sailors, Charles Herbert. available online. The crew of 120, including British, Irish, Scottish, French and Danish sailors, as well as self-proclaimed American citizens, included Daniel Cottle, described in the muster book as a black man. “This is not uncommon in North America,” Moore said. “He was probably a free black man in 1776 because of his role on this pirate ship. We see free blacks fighting on both sides of the revolution.”

Along with the rest of the crew, Cottle was transferred to a guard ship and eventually taken to England, where he was held at the Old Mill prison in Plymouth. “This is where we lose his story,” Moore said. “With more research, it’s possible we could track him down a little further; it’s possible he came from Newburyport, Massachusetts, where the majority of the Dalton crew are from. So there’s definitely more to his story here, and I’d love to uncover more if we can.”

Saul Nassé, director of the National Archives and custodian of public records, said the “rare, near-extinct” document is “a powerful reminder that the history of the American Revolution is fundamentally transatlantic.”

Besides its documentary significance, he said: “What makes this copy so important is its story. Not only is it one of only 11 copies in the world, but it also has a provenance. From a printing house in Exeter, New Hampshire, to a pirate at sea, to its capture and eventually becoming part of our state’s archives. And that kind of provenance is extremely rare.”