once and for all, The Revolutionary War saw each side trying to once and for all win an advantage, but for years

first one side and then the other gained the upper hand. ^

 

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L-7c Placing Modifiers Carefully

Edit the passage below to correct any MODIFIERS that are misplaced, ambiguous, or dangling,

or that split an INFINITIVE awkwardly. Answers to even-numbered items can be found at the

back of the book.

EXAMPLE

The colonists protested in 1764 and 1765 against taxes that Britain had placed on imports of

sugar and printed matter using the slogan “No taxation without representation.” In 1766, the

British agreed to repeal the taxes when the colonists stopped buying all British products. In

1767, however, the British placed other taxes on the colonists, who proceeded to again boycott

imports from Britain. Sending four thousand soldiers to Boston in response to the boycott, the

stage was set for violence, and indeed nervous British soldiers shot and killed protesting

colonists in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

After the 1767 taxes were repealed and the British troops withdrawn, relative peace

resumed in Boston until 1773. In December of that year, protesting the British monopoly on

importing tea into Boston and its delivery only to merchants loyal to Britain, three ships in Boston

Harbor were boarded by colonists and all cases of tea thrown overboard. This so-called Boston

Tea Party was soon followed by anti-British tea parties in other colonies. Though not amounting

to acts of war, the Boston Tea Party’s inspirational effect led many colonists to begin preparing

for armed resistance to the British, who they expected would soon attack them. In April 1775,

Paul Revere and colleagues alerted Boston-area residents on horseback that British troops

would soon enter the towns of Lexington and Concord. The British killed eight Minutemen in

Lexington, battles followed in Concord, and the British suffered significant losses.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine wrote, printed, and distributed Common

Sense, an argument in defense of independence for the colonies. Half a million

copies sold quickly, and public opinion began to shift significantly. Still, every

colonist was not supporting the revolution; historians estimate that about a third of the

population favored separation from Britain, with another third opposed and the rest not

Name: _____________________________________________________ Class/section: ________________________________

Name: Class/section:

caring much either way. Meanwhile, hostilities continued between the rebels and British

troops. In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress, with delegates representing all

thirteen colonies, appointed a committee to as quickly as possible prepare a document

announcing independence from Britain. Congress formally adopted the Declaration of

Independence on July 4, 1776.

While fighting the British for five more years, the French and Prussians aided the new

nation. Finally, in October 1781, the British general Charles Cornwallis said that after a twenty-

one-day siege by the Americans and French in Yorktown, Virginia, he would surrender. This

event ended the American Revolution on the battlefield.

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