{"id":671000,"date":"2026-07-03T04:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T04:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671000\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T04:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T04:16:14","slug":"rare-copy-of-us-declaration-of-independence-found-by-volunteer-in-uk-archives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671000\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare copy of US Declaration of Independence found by volunteer in UK archives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Following restoration works, the copy will be displayed in the archives&#8217; exhibition on the path to American independence, which opened last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saul Nass\u00e9, chief executive of The National Archives, praised the find as &#8220;an extraordinary discovery&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added: &#8220;It&#8217;s a vanishingly rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence, found not in America, but here in the UK.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The document was seized by the Royal Navy on Christmas Eve 1776 when the HMS Raisonable captured an American ship, the Dalton, off the coast of Portugal following a seven-hour pursuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr Graham Moore from The National Archives said the discovery is &#8220;one of the rarest forms of the Declaration we know about&#8221;, adding that it was not meant to be preserved due to the intention to distribute it quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;After the original printing on 4 July, the news of the Declaration is travelling fast around North America and its being reprinted as it reaches each successive colony,&#8221; he told BBC News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The copy we have is one of only 11 surviving from the first ones printed in New Hampshire.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following restoration works, the copy will be displayed in the archives&#8217; exhibition on the path to American independence,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-671000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}