British archives volunteer finds another paper tucked in a captured ship’s report. Turns out, it’s a rare copy of the US Declaration of Independence

A volunteer at Britain‘s National Archives has discovered what researchers have since identified as a rare early copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, according to the National Archives cited by Associated Press. The document was said to be found tucked inside the papers of a Royal Navy captain who captured an American ship on Christmas Eve in 1776.

Michael Scurr, a retired insurance executive who has been volunteering at the archives every Thursday morning for 11 years, reportedly made the find last May while going through the correspondence of an 18th-century Royal Navy captain. Attached to a report on the capture of the American privateer vessel Dalton was an enclosure described only as “another paper.”