A rare 1776 printing of the Declaration of Independence has been found in the U.K.’s National Archive by a volunteer.
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Known as an “Exeter Declaration,” the copy is one of 11 of its kind known to still exist and is believed to be the only one outside the United States, according to the National Archive.
“This is an extraordinary discovery,” said Saul Nassé, Chief Executive of The National Archives and Keeper of Public Records. “It’s a vanishingly rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence, found not in America, but here in the U.K.”
Believed to have been printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1776, the copies were produced to spread the news of the signing of the actual declaration and often carried on ships.
The National Archive says the document was seized from an American ship, the Dalton, on Christmas Eve in 1776 by the British Royal Navy vessel HMS Raisonable following a 7-hour pursuit off the coast of Portugal.
When the ship was brought to Britain, the seized papers included the privateer’s commission, printed instructions from the Continental Congress, and the Declaration, which was archived simply as “another paper.”
Now 250 years later, Michael Scurry, a volunteer at the National Archive in London, found it when cataloguing a box of correspondence.
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“I called over to my boss and said, ‘I think you need to come and have a look at this,'” Scurry told CBS News partner network BBC News.
After identifying it, the National Archive said it carried out a “careful conservation” to repair a slight tear and stabilize the paper.
Dr Graham Moore, a curator at The National Archive, said, “This is one of the rarest forms of the Declaration we know about. It wasn’t meant to be preserved – it was printed quickly and distributed widely.”
The fact that the copy was on board the Dalton, Dr. Moore said, “tells us a great deal about its meaning and importance.”
“For the men on board the Dalton, it set out what they were fighting for, and why,” he added.
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