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The Newburgh Conspiracy was what appeared to be a threatened uprising in the Continental Army in March 1783, when the American Revolutionary War was at its end. Possibly instigated by political actors in the Congress of the Confederation, an anonymous letter was circulated in the army camp at Newburgh, New York, on March 10, 1783. The letter suggested that the army, whose soldiers were discontented over pay that was in arrears and a lack of funding for promised pensions, should take unspecified action against Congress to resolve the issue. The letter was written by Major John Armstrong, aide to General Horatio Gates, although the authorship of its text and underlying ideas is a subject of historical debate. Commander-in-Chief George Washington stopped any serious talk by appealing successfully to his officers to support the supremacy of Congress in an emotional address on March 15. Not long afterward, Congress approved a compromise agreement it had previously rejected: some of the pay arrears were funded, and soldiers were granted five years of full pay instead of a lifetime pension of half pay. The motivations of numerous actors in these events are the subject of debate. Some historians allege that serious consideration was given within the army to some sort of ''coup d'état'', while others dispute the notion. The exact motivations of congressmen involved in communications with army officers implicated in the events are similarly debated. ==Background== After the British loss at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, the American Revolutionary War died down in North America, and peace talks began between British and American diplomats. The American Continental Army, based at Newburgh, New York, monitored British-occupied New York City. With the end of the war and dissolution of the Continental Army approaching, soldiers who had long been unpaid feared that the Confederation Congress would not meet previous promises concerning back pay and pensions. Congress had in 1780 promised Continental officers a lifetime pension of half their pay when they were discharged.〔Kohn, ''Inside History'', p 189〕 Financier Robert Morris had in early 1782 stopped army pay as a cost-saving measure, arguing that when the war finally ended the arrears would be made up.〔Rappleye, p 288〕 Throughout 1782 these issues were a regular topic of debate in Congress and in the army camp at Newburgh, and numerous memorials and petitions by individual soldiers had failed to significantly affect Congressional debate on the subject.〔Kohn, ''Inside History'', p 190〕 A number of officers organized under the leadership of General Henry Knox and drafted a memorial to Congress. Signed by enough general officers that it could not be readily dismissed as the work of a few malcontents,〔Rappleye, pp 332–333〕 the memorial was delivered to Congress by a delegation consisting of General Alexander McDougall and Colonels John Brooks and Matthias Ogden in late December 1782. It expressed unhappiness over pay that was months in arrears, and concern over the possibility that the half pay pension would not be forthcoming. In the memorial they offered to accept a lump sum payment instead of the lifetime half pay pension. It also contained the vague threat that "any further experiments on their (army's ) patience may have fatal effects."〔 The seriousness of the situation was also communicated to Congress by Secretary at War Benjamin Lincoln.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Newburgh Conspiracy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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