Among the reforms recommended by the committee, called the "Committee of Arrangement," who were sent to the camp, none met with so much opposition in Congress as that which provided for increasing the pay of the officers and soldiers of the army. Hitherto there had been no provision made for officers after the war should end, and the pay which they were actually receiving being in depreciated Continental bills was merely nominal. To the effect of this state of things in the army we have already adverted. It was most disastrous. Washington was desirous that Congress should make provision for giving officers half pay for life, or some other permanent provision, and increasing the inducements for soldiers to enlist. A party in Congress opposed this as having the appearance of a standing army, a pension list, and a privileged order in society. In a letter to Congress Washington said: "If my opinion is asked with respect to the necessity of making this provision for the officers I am ready to declare that I do most religiously believe the salvation of the cause depends upon it, and without it your officers will moulder to nothing, or be composed of low and illiterate men, void of capacity for this or any other business. "Personally, as an officer, I have no interest in their decision, because I have declared, and I now repeat it, that I never will receive the smallest benefit from the half-pay establishment, but as a man who fights under the weight of a proscription, and as a citizen, who wishes to see the liberty of his country established upon a permanent foundation, and whose property depends upon the success of our arms, I am deeply interested. But all this apart and justice out of the question, upon the single ground of economy and public saving, I will maintain the utility of it, for I have not the least doubt that until officers consider their commissions in an honorable and interested point of view, and are afraid to endanger them by negligence and inattention, no order, regularity, or care either of the men or public property, will prevail." The following passages, from a letter addressed to a delegate in Congress from Virginia, exhibit the view Washington took at the time of public affairs and the spirit and eloquence with which he pleaded the cause of the country and the army.