74 HAYS—DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. (Jan. 19, 
The inference that this edition was printed early in the month of * 
July, 1776, is strengthened by the wording of the title, which was 
changed to ‘‘the Unanimous Declaration,’’ etc., by resolution of 
the Congress on July 19, 1776, as we shall see more particularly 
hereafter, 
This edition, as regards typography, is beyond comparison the 
finest of the contemporaneous broadsides of the Declaration. It is 
fac-similed, reduced in size about one-half, in the accompanying 
plate (Plate V). 
In the Du Simitiére’s Scraps, 1771-1810, in the Philadelphia 
Library (960 and 962 F), there is another contemporaneous broad- 
side of the Declaration which is also unnoted in the bibliographies. 
It does not bear anyimprint. It measures on the print 107g inches 
in breadth and 11¥ inches in length. It is in double column, 
separated by two parallel rules, and at the bottom of the second 
column it has the printed signature and attestation of John Han- 
cock and Charles Thomson in the same form as in the previous edi- 
tions noted. 
The line for line transcript of the head lines is as follows,: 
In Congress, July 4, 1776 | A Declaration by the Representa- 
tives of the United States | of America, in General Congress 
assembled | 
With the kind assistance of Mr. Charles R. Hildeburn, I endea- 
vored to identify the printer of this broadside by means of the types 
used, but without success, although Mr. Hildeburn is strongly in- 
clined to believe that it is a Philadelphia imprint. 
John Gill and Powars and Willis, of Boston, jointly appear to 
have struck off two editions of the Declaration, one without and the 
other with their imprint. Copies of both of these are in the library 
of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Neither of them is given 
in Mr. Ford’s Libhography. 
John Gill was the publisher of the Continental Journal, and Dr. 
Green writes me that this broadside ‘‘ was undoubtedly printed in 
July, 1776, as a copy in finer type appears in his paper of July 18. 
Powars and Willis were also publishers of another paper, the /Vew 
England Chronicle, in Queen Street.’’. The edition without their 
imprint, Dr. Green informs me, ‘‘ was struck from the same form 
[as the one with their imprint] with the texts of the same dimen- 
