As [George] Washington prepared to read to [his officers] an account of Congress’s desperate financial straits, he pulled out his new spectacles, and concluded with the now historic appeal: “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind.”

Whether it was this last appeal, or shame brought on by Washington’s disappointment in an army that could threaten such disloyalty, the officers voted to reject the Newburgh Addresses and asked Washington to negotiate with Congress to redress the wrongs they had brought to the government’s attention in their January petition.