July 17, 1776

In New York on July 9, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud at the head of the Continental Army. It was “received with loud huzzas, and the utmost demonstrations of joy.” A few hours later, “the equestrian statue of George III. which tory pride and folly raised in the year 1770, was, by the sons of freedom, laid prostrate in the dirt.” The Pennsylvania Journal copied John Holt’s description in the New-York Journal of this iconoclasm as “the just desert of an ungrateful tyrant.” The lead from the statue was going to be “run into bullets, to assimilate with the brain of our infatuated adversaries.”

The Pennsylvania Journal; and the Weekly Advertiser
Printed by William and Thomas Bradford

NEW-YORK, July 11.
[...]
On Wednesday last, the Declaration of Independence was read at the head of each brigade of the Continental army, posted at and near New-York, and every where received with loud huzzas, and the utmost demonstrations of joy.

The same evening the equestrian statue of George III. which tory pride and folly raised in the year 1770, was, by the sons of freedom, laid prostrate in the dirt; the just desert of an ungrateful tyrant! The lead wherewith this monument was made, is to be run into bullets, to assimilate with the brain of our infatuated adversaries, who, to gain a pepper-corn, have lost an empire.* “Quos Deus vult perdere, prins dementat.”

A gentleman, who was present at this ominous fall of leaden Majesty, looking back to the original’s hopeful beginning, pertinently exclaimed, int he language of the angel to lucifer, “If thou be’st he! But ah, how fallen! How chang’d!

*Lord Clare in the House of Commons, declared that a peppercorn in acknowledgement to Britain’s right to tax America, was of more importance than millions without it.