The soldiers, realizing fully that they probably never would be paid in sound money, with their own meager fortunes ruined by their years of struggle, and disgusted with the politics, the compromises, and ineffectiveness of the Continental Congress, turned to the idea of western lands. At least, their almost worthless pay certificates could be used in buying land from the government which had issued such money. In these far-off wildernesses they would find the freedom they craved and escape from the seeming ineffectiveness of government under the Articles of Confederation. Congress had actually voted at the very beginning of the war, and long before the nation owned a square foot of these lands, to give western lands as bounties for military service. The separate colonies, especially Virginia, had given such bounties for service in the earlier wars against Indians and French. Washington had made a trip to the Ohio country in 1770 to select such bounty lands, and had been so impressed that he chose some 40,000 acres of his own. As hero of the troops, and the greatest single factor in preventing their mutinies, it seems certain that his enthusiasm for these lands heightened that of the soldiers. Washington, too, saw that a western frontier peopled by veterans whose earnestness of purpose and abilities could not be questioned, would form the safest bulwark against attack by the Indians, or by the British—who if they gave up title at all, would do so unwillingly and with tongues in their cheeks. But, as yet, there was no determination, or even clearly defined suggestion as to the form of government which would apply to the United States. The Articles of Confederation were unwieldy, undependable, and, if anything, were working against the idea of representative government. In 1783, while the troops were in camp awaiting the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and on the verge of being discharged to go to—they knew not what—with no money, and with the rebuilding of their worlds yet before them, they expressed in writing their hopes and aspirations for their own and America’s future. This humble document, recorded by Timothy Pickering as scribe, and signed by 283 leaders of the men, set forth not only their desire for lands in the West, but for certain principles of government as fundamental to their hopes, ambitions and plans. This plan became known to history variously as the Pickering Plan, the Newburgh Petition, and the Army Plan. Essentially, it was the innermost determination of ordinary Americans who had proved their sincerity of purpose. It was probably the first crystallized expression from the men who had fought to establish the new nation as to what its tenets of government should be. A study of this document will disclose a striking similarity to the Ordinance of 1787, when we get to that point in our history.