Rare 1776 Declaration of Independence discovered at The National Archives

A rare 1776 printing of the US Declaration of Independence - one of just 11 known to survive and the only copy outside the United States - has been discovered at The National Archives in Kew.

The document was among papers seized when the American privateer Dalton was captured by the Royal Navy on Christmas Eve 1776. Listed at the time simply as 'another paper', it has now been identified as a contemporary printing of the Declaration.

The find was made during a cataloguing project exploring Royal Navy captains' papers from the American Revolutionary War, part of The National Archives' work marking the United States' 250th anniversary.

Printed in Exeter, New Hampshire, between 16-19 July 1776, copies like this were produced to spread news of independence quickly across the colonies. They were often carried on ships to rally support for the revolutionary cause.

Dr Graham Moore, Revolution 250 curator at The National Archives, 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.

'What makes this discovery even more exceptional is that, as the only known copy taken by military action, we know much more about it - thanks to the bureaucratic processes of war.

'Evidence taken from captured ships was preserved as part of Admiralty court proceedings, and we hold those records at The National Archives. So we can present an unusually rich backstory that most surviving declarations do not have.'

The Dalton was pursued for seven hours off the coast of Portugal by HMS Raisonable before being captured and brought back to Britain.

Saul Nassé, Chief Executive of The National Archives and Keeper of Public Records, said: 'This is an extraordinary discovery. It's a vanishingly rare surviving copy of the Declaration of Independence, found not in America, but here in the UK.

'Preserved in our state records, it's a powerful reminder that the history of the American Revolution is fundamentally transatlantic.'

• Read more about the discovery in our blog
• Read more about the story of the Dalton