It was Thursday, July 18, 1776.
Boston officials proclaimed the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the State House. Cannon fired in salutes of 13, troops stood in 13 divisions, bells rang and cheers rolled through King Street.
By evening, Bostonians had torn down the king’s arms and other royal symbols and committed them to the flames.
In Philadelphia, Congress opened intercepted letters from Lord Howe and read a draft plan for treaties with foreign powers.
In New York, George Washington ordered an army burdened by fatigue duty to practice loading and firing with speed and calm while preparing a two-gun signal for a British landing on Long Island.
July 18 showed independence moving beyond the page. It had become a public ceremony, a foreign policy and a military test.
The DX Brief
- Boston proclaimed the Declaration of Independence from the State House balcony on July 18, 1776.
- The ceremony included troops arranged in 13 divisions and cannon salutes representing the 13 states.
- Abigail Adams watched as cheers, bells, privateers, forts, batteries and platoons answered the reading.
- Bostonians later burned the king’s arms, the lion and unicorn and other royal symbols in King Street.
- Congress opened intercepted letters from Lord Howe and assigned Thomas Jefferson, Robert Treat Paine and Charles Carroll to review them.
- John Adams presented a draft plan for commercial treaties with foreign powers.
- Washington’s General Orders demanded practice in loading and firing with both speed and calm despite the army’s heavy fatigue duty.
- Two guns from Cobble Hill would signal that British troops had landed on Long Island.
- Congress read Washington’s July 17 report and referred it to the Board of War.
Boston hears the Declaration
The Declaration reached Boston nearly two weeks after Congress approved it in Philadelphia.
Express riders delivered a printed copy on July 15. A Salem newspaper reprinted it the next day, and Massachusetts officials arranged a public proclamation for July 18.
At 1 p.m., troops assembled in King Street outside the State House, now known as the Old State House. A contemporary account described two regiments under arms, artillery on their flank and a crowd waiting beneath the balcony.
Abigail Adams stood among them. In a July 21 letter to John Adams, she wrote that “great attention was given to every word” as Col. Thomas Crafts read the proclamation.
When he finished, the cry went up, “God Save our American States,” followed by “3 cheers which rended the air.” Bells rang. Privateers and forts fired. Cannon and platoons answered in succession.
Smallpox kept many people from the countryside away, Abigail Adams wrote, but the city still turned the reading into a public declaration of its own.
Royal authority goes into the fire
The celebration did not end with cannon and cheers.
The “king’s arms” meant the royal coat of arms and other Crown emblems, not weapons.
Henry Alline described what happened next in a July 19 letter. Bostonians tore down the lion and unicorn from the State House, removed the king’s arms from government buildings and gathered royal symbols from around the city.
Toward evening, he wrote, they were “Committed to the flames to the Satisfaction of every body but Tories.”
Abigail Adams gave the scene its final line in her own letter: “Thus ends royall Authority in this State, and all the people shall say Amen.”
The Declaration had announced the political break. Boston turned that break into something people could see.
Congress opens Howe’s letters
Congress spent the same day examining Britain’s attempt to shape what came next.
Washington had forwarded intercepted letters from Lord Richard Howe to colonial governors and former royal officials, along with private correspondence and enclosed proclamations.
Congress opened the letters and assigned Thomas Jefferson, Robert Treat Paine and Charles Carroll to review Howe’s messages, according to the July 18 minutes. It created another committee to separate genuinely private letters and deliver them to the intended recipients.
Congress also read Washington’s July 17 report and dispatches from Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler before referring them to the Board of War.
The United States had declared independence, but Britain still hoped proclamations and peace commissioners could divide or disarm the American cause. Congress now had the letters in front of it.
America looks beyond Britain
Congress did more than inspect British messages.
The committee appointed to prepare treaties with foreign states presented its draft on July 18.
The plan opened by proposing “a firm, inviolable, and universal Peace” and “a true and sincere Friendship” between France and the United States.
John Adams had drafted an earlier version and presented the more formal proposal to Congress. It focused on reciprocal trade and indirect assistance rather than a direct promise of French military support, according to the State Department’s historical summary.
Congress did not adopt the final Model Treaty until September 17. The document later helped shape the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France.
The timing mattered. On the same day Congress opened Howe’s letters, it began defining how an independent United States would deal with powers beyond Britain.
Washington demands quickness and calmness
While Boston celebrated and Congress looked outward, Washington kept preparing for the British attack.
His July 18 orders acknowledged that heavy fatigue duty left little time for drill. He praised the officers and men for performing that work with “cheerfulness and zeal,” but still told commanders to train their troops whenever possible.
Washington wanted the men to practice maneuvering and the parts of the manual exercise involving loading and firing “not only with quickness, but calmness.”
He also established an alarm signal. Two guns fired from Cobble Hill would mean the enemy had landed on Long Island.
The orders warned sentries along the river to stop firing wantonly at boats and to leave ferry traffic alone. Washington also added 100 men to the army’s fatigue details and ordered the full working party to assemble precisely at 6 a.m.
The army had to build defenses, police the waterways and prepare to fight at the same time. Washington wanted speed, but he also wanted control.
Why it mattered
July 18, 1776, showed three parts of nationhood taking shape at once.
Boston made independence public. The Declaration came off the page, passed through the voice of a local official and drew an answer from cannon, bells and thousands of people. The crowd then destroyed the symbols of royal authority that had governed the city.
Congress began acting beyond Britain. It examined Howe’s messages while reading a plan that treated the United States as a country capable of making treaties with France and other powers.
Washington prepared the army that had to protect those claims. His men spent much of their time on construction and fatigue duty, but he still demanded that they learn to load and fire with quickness and calmness.
The Declaration had said the United States was independent.
On July 18, Americans began showing what that meant in the street, in diplomacy and in the ranks.
Tomorrow on Road to Independence
July 19, 1776: Congress ordered the Declaration engrossed on parchment under a new title and prepared it for signatures. Lawmakers also moved to publish Lord Howe’s circular letters so Americans could judge Britain’s peace commission for themselves.
Follow the full Road to Independence series here.
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