The weak and broken condition of the continental regiments, the strong remonstrances of the General, the numerous complaints received from every quarter, determined congress to depute a committee to reside in camp during the winter, for the purpose of investigating the state of the army, and reporting such reforms as the public good might require. This committee repaired to head quarters in the month of January. The Commander-in-chief laid before them a general statement, taking a comprehensive view of the condition of the army, and detailing the remedies necessary for the correction of existing abuses, as well as those regulations which he deemed essential to its future prosperity. This paper, exhibiting the actual state of the army, discloses defects of real magnitude in the existing arrangements. In perusing it, the reader is struck with the numerous difficulties, in addition to those resulting from inferiority of numbers, with which the American general was under the necessity of contending. The memorial is too long to be inserted, but there are parts which ought not to be entirely overlooked. The neglect of the very serious representation it contained respecting a future permanent provision for the officers, threatened, at an after period, to be productive of such pernicious effects, that their insertion in this place will not, it is presumed, be unacceptable. He recommended as the basis of every salutary reform, a comfortable provision for the officers, which should render their commissions valuable; to effect which the future, as well as the present, ought to be contemplated. "A long and continual sacrifice of individual interest for the general good, ought not," he said, "to be expected or required. The nature of man must be changed, before institutions built on the presumptive truth of such a principle can succeed. "This position," he added, "is supported by the conduct of the officers of the American army, as well as by that of all other men. At the commencement of the dispute, in the first effusions of zeal, when it was believed the service would be temporary, they entered into it without regard to pecuniary considerations. But finding its duration much longer than had been at first expected, and that, instead of deriving advantage from the hardships and dangers to which they are exposed, they were, on the contrary, losers by their patriotism, and fell far short of even a competency for their wants, they have gradually abated in their ardour; and, with many, an entire disinclination to the service, under present circumstances, has taken place. To this, in an eminent degree, must be ascribed the frequent resignations daily happening, and the more frequent importunities for permission to resign, from some officers of the greatest merit.