Hanging Up Hancock
The people who purchased the British broadsides of the Declaration were probably more interested in celebrating Hancock than hanging him
In Philadelphia in 1816, when John Binns announced his plans for a “splendid edition” of the Declaration of Independence, he said that it would be “embellished with medallion portraits” of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Hancock, “taken from the most esteemed likenesses.”
John Binns, Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, 1819, Library of Congress
But Binns’s broadside was not the first to bear Hancock’s portrait. The first copies of the Declaration to feature the likeness of the president of the Continental Congress were created in 1776, far from Philadelphia.
This broadside at the John Carter Brown Library is the only known intact example of a work by an unidentified British printer. The Declaration of Independence is organized in two columns separated by a double line. The text bears distinctive characteristics found in London newspaper printings from the summer of 1776, so it seems likely that the printer was working in London. The John Carter Brown Library’s copy is strangely shaped because it was bound into a book and later excised. The cut marks are very tight to the right margin of the text, obscuring the broadside’s original rectangular shape. At the top of the broadside, there is an oval-shaped portrait of John Hancock in profile, wearing a white wig tied with a dark ribbon. The portrait is topped by a radiant liberty cap, a symbol of revolution.
Unidentified Printer, Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, ca. 1776, John Carter Brown Library
John Hancock had a reputation in London even before he became the Congress’s president. Pieces of news that were originally published in newspapers in Boston or Philadelphia made their way into British newspapers. Readers learned about Hancock’s mercantile career, his appointments to different assemblies, and even his wedding to Dorothy Quincy. The oration that Hancock delivered on the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre was printed and critiqued in London newspapers. One article in the Public Ledger decried his “frantic Oration” and called Hancock “IDIOTISM PERSONIFIED.”
Hancock’s position as president of the Continental Congress was interpreted in London newspapers through the lens of his rebellious leadership. King George III’s refusal to read the Olive Branch Petition—-the Congress’s last-ditch effort to command his attention to address their grievances—in August 1775 came on the heels of London newspaper readers learning about a proclamation from Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts. On behalf of the king, Gage offered pardons “to all persons who shall forthwith lay down their arms and return to the duties of peaceable subjects,” except “Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment.” A commentary in the London newspaper, Lloyd’s Evening Post, suggested that the British ministry would not “listen to an Address, which John Hancock, whom they have declared by Proclamation in Rebellion, and excluded from the offers of pardon, has signed as President.”
In early September 1775, around the same time that the Olive Branch Petition was printed in London newspapers, advertisements appeared for portraits of John Hancock:
This Day is published, Price 5. A Mezzotinto Print of JOHN HANCOCK, Esq. President of the American Congress, done from an original Picture painted by J. Copeley, of Boston, in the Possession of Capt. James Scott. To be had at No. 4, Middle-Row, Holborn.
Daily Advertiser, September 4, 1775
These engravings were copied from one of John Singleton Copley’s portrait of John Hancock. Whereas John Binns relied on Copley’s 1765 view of John Hancock seated, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, to create his broadsides, the prints produced in London in 1775 were more likely copied from one of Copley’s half-bust portraits, like the one at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In late September 1775, the London newspaper, the Craftsman or Say’s Weekly Journal printed political hearsay, “that ever since the portrait of the celebrated John Hancock has been exhibited in the print shops, numbers of the ministerial advocates have purchased it, merely for the sake of hanging him up.”
The people who purchased the British broadsides of the Declaration were probably more interested in celebrating Hancock than hanging him. Just like the ones created in the United States in 1776, the broadsides attributed to a London printer were meant to be posted up or used to read the text aloud. The symbols of liberty surrounding the portrait of John Hancock and the neatly arranged text below suggest that some Britons respected and perhaps even praised the Continental Congress, their leader, and their decision to declare independence.
Where to See It Online: John Carter Brown Library
