Intelligence of this mutiny was communicated to Washington at New Windsor before any accommodation had taken place. Though he had been long accustomed to decide in hazardous and difficult situations yet it was no easy matter in this delicate crisis to determine on the most proper course to be pursued. His personal influence had several times extinguished rising mutinies. The first scheme that presented itself was to repair to the camp of the mutineers and try to recall them to a sense of their duty, but on mature reflection this was declined. He well knew that their claims were founded in justice, but he could not reconcile himself to wound the discipline of his army by yielding to their demands while they were in open revolt with arms in their hands. He viewed the subject in all its relations and was well apprised that the principal grounds of discontent were not peculiar to the Pennsylvania line, but common to all the troops. If force was requisite he had none to spare without hazarding West Point. If concessions were unavoidable they had better be made by any person than the Commander-in-Chief. After that due deliberation which he always gave to matters of importance he determined against a personal interference and to leave the whole to the civil authorities which had already taken it up, but at the same time prepared for those measures which would become necessary if no accommodation took place. This resolution was communicated to Wayne, with a caution to regard the situation of the other lines of the army in any concessions which might be made and with a recommendation to draw the mutineers over the Delaware, with a view to increase the difficulty of communicating with the enemy in New York. The result, however, showed that this last was an unnecessary precaution. The success of the Pennsylvania troops in exacting from their country by violence what had been denied to the claims of equity produced a similar spirit of insubordination in another division of the army. On the night of the 20th of January (1781), about 160 of the Jersey brigade, which was quartered at Pompton, complaining of grievances similar to those of the Pennsylvania line and hoping for equal success, rose in arms, and marched to Chatham with the view of prevailing on some of their comrades stationed there to join them. Their number was not formidable and Washington, knowing that he might depend on the fidelity of the greater part of his troops detached Gen. Robert Howe against the mutineers, with orders to force them to unconditional submission and to execute some of the most turbulent of them on the spot. These orders were promptly obeyed and two of the ringleaders were put to death.