The American Museum in Bath, England, is one of my favorite places. Housed in a handsome 18th-century manor house, honey-colored like most Cotswold buildings, it perches on a hillside on the edge of town, commanding views that make visiting Americans feel a stab of British patriotism.

Like the rest of Britain, it is in celebratory mode, cheering the 250th birthday of the world’s greatest republic. Among other things, it is exhibiting one of the 26 surviving copies of the Declaration of Independence printed by John Dunlap on July 4, 1776, a copy captured by Loyalists during the fighting and sent to Britain by Gen. William Howe.