I.
Read and translate the text. Answer the questions. ( Если не трудно помогите грамотно и правильно ответить на вопросы)THE BOSTON TEA PARTY
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The
early English settlements in America were founded by small groups of people,
like the Mayflower emigrants. These
colonies grew larger and became important factors in Britain's struggle for
greater role in the world. They gave Britain different materials and much
money.
From
the mid - 1700s relations between Britain and the 13 British colonies on the
east cost of North America began to break down. After the British defeated
France in the Seven Years War in 1763, they tried to exert more power over the
colonies. The colonies had no right to trade with other nations than England.
They also had to pay duty on everything imported by England to
the colonies from other countries.
At the same time the American colonies
themselves were becoming stronger and were establishing their own industry,
agriculture and trade. They ignored many rules introduced by the British Parliament, which did not let them trade with other
nations.
The
colonies did not want to pay the duties on products brought from Britain and
her other colonies. They were especially against the duty on all tea imported
into colonies, and duties on some other less important products like paper.
So late in 1773, when the colonists
learned that seven British ships carrying tea were on their way to New York, Boston and other ports, they
decided that the tea duty was not going to be paid and that the tea was not going
to be landed.
When the first ship, the Dartmouth, reached Boston, a meeting was
called to discuss the problem and decide what to do.
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At the meeting the Americans decided
not to take this tea and made a plan. Fifty Boston men dressed as Indians and
after dark climbed up the sides of
the Dartmouth and two other ships
which had already reached Boston and threw the boxes of tea into water. This
incident was named the Boston Tea Party.
What had happened at Boston was greeted by other colonies. All of them were
beginning to understand that they could develop better without a mother
country. Many people began to think that they would have to fight for their
rights. These people were called Patriots.
The next year the leaders of the
colonies called a meeting to discuss relations with Britain. It was held m Philadelphia, in September, 1774. At this
meeting, which was called the Continental Congress, the colonies' problems were
discussed for many days. In the end the Congress decided .to send a letter to
London asking the Government to respect the rights of the colonists in America; but there was no change for the better.
So the patriots understood that the Congress hadn't helped them much and they
would have to fight for their rights.
Preparations for the war, which cost
Britain its American Empire, began. It was the war for the independence of
American colonies from British rule.
Answer the
following questions:
1. Who were the founders of the first
British settlements in America?
2. What rules about the American colonies were
introduced by the British Parliament?
3. What did the colonists decide late in
1773 and why?
4. What happened in Boston on a dark night
in December, 1773?
5. Who were called the Patriots?
6. What was the Continental Congress?
Where and when did it meet?