A volunteer sorting old Royal Navy papers found a rare 1776 US Declaration of Independence copy; it is one of 11 surviving Exeter printings and the only one outside the US

The copy of the ‘Exeter Declaration’ found at The National Archives.Photo credit: The National Archives

A volunteer sorting old Royal Navy papers at The National Archives in London has uncovered a rare 1776 printing of the US Declaration of Independence, found among letters sent by a British captain after capturing an American privateer ship. The document is one of only 11 surviving copies printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, and is now the only known example outside the United States. Discovered in May 2026 by volunteer Michael Scurr while cataloguing Admiralty correspondence, the fragile broadside had travelled across the Atlantic as wartime evidence before resting quietly in a box of 18th-century naval letters for more than two centuries, according to The National Archives.

A chance find in a box of captains’ letters

The discovery came as part of the America 250 project, which is cataloguing Royal Navy admirals’ and captains’ letters from the American Revolutionary War to coincide with the 250th anniversary of US independence. Michael Scurr, a volunteer on the project, was working through a box of correspondence from Captain Thomas Fitzherbert of HMS Raisonable when he noticed a reference to documents seized from a captured American vessel. One item, described simply as “another paper,” turned out to be the Exeter printing of the Declaration.For Scurr, the moment was both thrilling and humbling. Handling a document that had helped announce the birth of a new nation, in the same year that the United States is marking its 250th anniversary, underlined how much history can still be hidden in plain sight within vast archival collections. His find shows how volunteers, working steadily through uncatalogued or under-examined records, can change what we know about major historical events.

The Exeter Declarations and why they are rare

The Declaration of Independence was first adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on 4 July 1776. In the days that followed, printers across the Thirteen Colonies rushed to produce their own editions, spreading the news of independence as widely as possible. One of these printers was Robert Luist Fowle in Exeter, New Hampshire, who produced a small run of the text between 16 and 19 July 1776 for his newspaper, the New Hampshire Gazette or Exeter Morning Chronicle.These “Exeter Declarations” were printed quickly, on modest paper, for immediate distribution rather than long-term preservation. Over time, most copies were discarded, damaged or lost. Today, only 11 are known to survive, all held in US institutions until this discovery. The London copy is therefore unique not only for its rarity but for its location, offering a tangible link between the American Revolution and the British naval and governmental records that documented the conflict from the other side.

How a Declaration ended up in British hands

The story of how this particular copy reached London begins with an American privateer named Dalton, a 20-gun brigantine commissioned by the Continental Congress to attack British shipping. In late 1776, the Dalton sailed from Newburyport, Massachusetts, with a mixed crew of about 120 men, including Americans, English, Irish, Scottish, French and Danish sailors, as well as at least one Black crew member, Daniel Cottle. During a stop on the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire, someone on board, most likely an officer, acquired a freshly printed Exeter Declaration.On Christmas Eve 1776, the Dalton was hunting for British prizes off the coast of Portugal when it encountered HMS Raisonable, a much larger 64-gun Royal Navy ship. After a seven-hour chase, the Dalton surrendered. Captain Fitzherbert recorded the capture in his log and took the American crew as prisoners. He then ordered one of his lieutenants to bring the Dalton, its senior officers and its papers into Plymouth for prize proceedings.

Prize papers, procedure and a deliberate exception

Under British naval practice at the time, all papers found on a captured enemy ship had to be seized and presented to a prize court to determine whether the vessel and its cargo legally belonged to the enemy. The lieutenant acting as prize-captain swore that the only documents taken from the Dalton were its privateering commission and instructions from Congress. We now know that was not the full story.Captain Fitzherbert kept the Declaration for himself. He made copies of the Dalton’s commission and instructions and sent those to the Admiralty Secretary in Whitehall, along with a brief note mentioning signals and “another paper.” That “other paper” was the Exeter Declaration. By singling it out for immediate dispatch, Fitzherbert seems to have recognised its significance, even if Britain did not yet acknowledge the United States as a sovereign nation. From that point, the document remained within British government records, passing from the Admiralty to the Public Record Office and finally to The National Archives, where it lay unnoticed until 2026.

The Dalton’s crew and their fate

The fate of the Dalton’s crew adds another layer to the story. After their capture, the sailors were imprisoned first on HMS Belleisle in Plymouth harbour and later at the Old Mill Prison, which by the end of 1779 held nearly 300 American prisoners. Among them was 19-year-old Charles Herbert of Newburyport, who kept a diary describing the harsh conditions and several escape attempts, including an elaborate tunnel dug beneath the prison.Herbert’s account reveals how the ideals of the Declaration played out in the lives of ordinary people. These men had volunteered to serve on a ship authorised by the Continental Congress, many of them attacking the shipping of their own nations of birth. Some were free Black sailors, others were immigrants or transient workers drawn into the conflict by opportunity, ideology or circumstance. Their experiences of capture, imprisonment and eventual release form a human counterpoint to the grand political claims of the document they carried.

Conservation and scientific examination

Once the Declaration was identified, collection care specialists at The National Archives undertook delicate conservation work. The document had been bound into a volume of Fitzherbert’s letters, attached with adhesive. Senior conservator Jillian Harrold used an ultrasonic humidifier to introduce moisture in a controlled way, softening the glue so the broadside could be gently separated with a spatula. A long tear across the middle was repaired using fine Japanese paper and wheat starch paste, stabilising the sheet for future handling and display.Heritage scientist Marc Vermeulen then examined the paper and printing. Raking light photography revealed the original fold lines, showing how the sheet had been handled and stored over time. Microscopic analysis detected blue fibres typical of rag paper made from recycled textiles, as well as yellowish plant fragments that may include hemp hurd. Transmitted light imaging showed the chain and laid lines characteristic of handmade paper, though no watermark was found. These features suggest a comparatively lower-quality paper, consistent with the urgent, economical printing conditions in wartime New England.

What the discovery means for historians

For historians of the American Revolution, the Exeter Declaration in London is more than a rare printing. It is a physical trace of how the ideas of independence travelled across the Atlantic, carried on a privateer ship, captured by the Royal Navy and filed within British government records as evidence in a prize case. The document’s presence in Admiralty papers underscores how intertwined British and American histories were during the war, even as the two sides fought to define their future relationship.The find also highlights the continuing importance of archival cataloguing and volunteer-led projects. The America 250 initiative, building on earlier work to catalogue Royal Navy captains’ letters from the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, created the conditions for this discovery. Without systematic attention to these boxes of correspondence, the Declaration might have remained hidden for decades more.

A new chapter in a 250-year story

The Exeter Declaration will feature in The National Archives’ exhibition Revolution 250: America’s Independence Story 1763–1783, which runs from June to November 2026. Alongside three Dunlap Broadsides, the first official prints of the Declaration held in the UK, the newly found copy offers visitors a chance to see different early printings and consider how the text circulated in its first weeks.For Michael Scurr and the team behind the America 250 project, the discovery is a reminder that major historical documents can still surface in unexpected places. A volunteer opening a box of 18th-century naval letters in London has added a new chapter to the story of the Declaration of Independence, linking a small New Hampshire print shop, an American privateer captured off Portugal and the British naval bureaucracy that preserved, perhaps unintentionally, a unique piece of transatlantic history.