| Part C Directions:
Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)
The Revolutionary War, which began officially on April 19,1775, dragged on for more than six bitter years. (46) It was a conflict fought by the colonials for the righteous cause of securing freedom from intolerable British intervention in American affairs.
Maritime commerce was always an important factor in the war effort, and trade linkages were vital to supply of arms and ammunitions. When legal restrictions were implemented by both the British and the colonists in 1775, nearly all American overseas commerce abruptly ceased. By mid1775, the colonies faced acute shortages in such military essentials as powder, flints, muskets, and knives. Even salt, shoes, woolens, and linens were in short supply. (47) Late in 1775, Congress authorized limited trade with the West Indies, mainly to procure arms and ammunitions, and trade with other nonEnglish areas was on an unrestricted basis by the spring of 1776.
Nevertheless, the British maintained a fairly effective naval blockade of American ports, especially during the first two years of the war. Yet the colonies engaged in international trade despite the blockade. Formal treaties of commerce with France in 1778 and with Holland and Spain shortly thereafter stimulated the flows of overseas trade. Between 1778 and early 1782, American wartime commerce was at its zenith. During those years, France, Holland, Spain, and their possessions all actively traded with the colonies. Even so, the flow of goods in and out of the colonies remained well below prewar levels. Smuggling, privateering and legal trade with overseas partners only partially offset the drastic trade reductions with Britain. (48)Even the coastal trades were curtailed by a lack of vessels, by blockades, and by wartime freight rates. Britishoccupied ports, such as New York, generated some import activity but little or nothing in the way of exports.
As exports and imports fell, import substitution abounded, and the colonial economy became considerably more selfsufficient. In Philadelphia, for instance, nearly 4,000 women were employed to spin materials in their homes for the newly established textile plants. (49)A sharp increase also occurred in the number of artisan workshops with a similar stimulus in the production of beer, whiskey, and other domestic alcoholic beverages. The rechanneling of American resources into importcompeting industries was especially strong along the coast and in the major port cities. (50)Only the least commercialized rural areas remained little affected by the serpentine path of war and the sporadic flow of wartime commerce. |
