Notwithstanding these urgent appeals, the spring of 1782 arrived, and the summer passed away, without any substantial compliance by the States with the requisitions of Congress for either men or money. When Washington arrived in camp, in May, to commence the campaign that was to extort from the British government--now in the hands of a new ministry, supposed to be more favorable to peace--the terms which he hoped might be procured, there were less than ten thousand men in the Northern army; and their numbers were not much increased during the summer.[160] Great and dangerous discontents now existed in the army, both among officers and soldiers, concerning the arrearages of pay; for, as the prospects of peace became brighter, it seemed to become more and more probable, that the army would ultimately be disbanded without adequate provision for its claims, and that officers and men would be thrown penniless upon the world, unpaid by the country whose independence they had achieved. At this period there occurred the famous proceedings of the officers, called the Newburgh Addresses, on the subject of half-pay; and since the claims of the officers and soldiers, as public creditors of the United States, are intimately connected with the constitutional history of the country, it is needful to give here a brief account of them. The pay of the officers in the Revolutionary army was originally established upon so low a scale, that men with families dependent upon them could feel little inducement to remain long in a service, the close of which was to be rewarded only with a patent for a few hundred acres of land in some part of the Western wilderness. In the year 1778, it had become apparent to Washington, that something must be done to avert the consequences of the mistaken policy on which Congress had acted with reference to the army; and while at Valley Forge,--that scene of dreadful suffering by the army,--he wrote on this subject to the President of Congress the first of a series of most able and instructive letters, which extend through the five following years.[161]