Story perspectives

Exeter Declaration Uncovered, Shows Multicultural Crew’s Harsh Imprisonment

7/4/2026

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Michael Scurr Uncovers Declaration

The discovery underscores the Revolution’s transatlantic, multicultural reality by revealing a captured privateer crew’s harsh imprisonment.
Volunteer Michael Scurr uncovered an Exeter printing of the Declaration of Independence in Royal Navy papers, now conserved for display.
Dalton’s crew was multinational, with a free Black sailor, and faced harsh imprisonment in Plymouth.
Conservators found low-quality rag fibers, showing 1770s New England printers’ economic constraints.

Right

Scurr Uncovers Declaration

The copy is the only known Exeter Declaration located outside the United States.
Volunteer Michael Scurr uncovered the 1776 Exeter Declaration while cataloguing Royal Navy papers, prompting archivists to conserve it for display.
The document is one of only eleven surviving Exeter printings worldwide, making it vanishingly rare.
It will be exhibited in the Archives’ Revolution 250 show alongside a July 4, 1776 Dunlap Broadside.

History

Historical Context

When the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776, the Committee of Five—led by Thomas Jefferson—tasked printer John Dunlap to issue a broadside that night, producing roughly 200 copies of which only 26 are known today. The newly found Exeter rag-paper copy links that 1776 print effort to the diverse maritime networks that spread revolutionary propaganda.

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Michael Scurr Uncovers Declaration

The discovery underscores the Revolution’s transatlantic, multicultural reality by revealing a captured privateer crew’s harsh imprisonment.
Volunteer Michael Scurr uncovered an Exeter printing of the Declaration of Independence in Royal Navy papers, now conserved for display.
Dalton’s crew was multinational, with a free Black sailor, and faced harsh imprisonment in Plymouth.
Conservators found low-quality rag fibers, showing 1770s New England printers’ economic constraints.

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