Defending the Colonies against attack from the French and others had cost（使付出代价） the British a great deal of money. As a result, the British had very high taxes in their country. They thus decided to shift（转移） some of their financial burden （负担）to the colonies.

      The Stamp Act of 1765, which taxed all legal documents, newspapers and other documents, was met with a great uproar in the Colonies. In 1766, this tax was repealed, but it was just the beginning of the problems between the colonists and the British.

      The Boston Tea Party in 1733 was an act of revolt （叛乱）against the British and their tax on tea in the colonies.

      Tensions（紧张局势） such as these eventually led to the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. A year earlier, the War of Independence, also known as the American Revolution, began. When the British finally surrendered （投降）on October 19, 1781, Americans were officially independent of British and set about establishing their own government.

      The American Revolution was not a sudden and violent（暴力的） overturning of the political and social framework, such as those later occurred in France and Russia, when both were already independent nations. Significant changes were ushered in, but they were not breathtaking. What happened was accelerated evolution（演化） rather than outright revolution.

     During the conflict（冲突）, people went on working and praying（祈祷）, marrying and playing. Most of them were not seriously disturbed by the actual fighting, and many of the isolated communities scarcely knew that a war was on.

     America’s War of Independence heralded the birth of two modern nations. One was Canada, which received its first large influx of English-speaking population from the thousands of loyalist who fled there from the United States. Another was Australia, which became a penal colony now that America was no longer available for prisoners and debtors.