At the same time there were more serious disturbances in the Western Union. Colonel Van Rensselaer of Sancoik, acting under authority of New York, had arrested at New City (now Lansingburg) a colonel of the Vermont militia, who presently escaped. Not long afterwards Van Rensselaer himself was arrested and taken to Bennington, where, according to his own statement, he was well treated and soon discharged. Other arrests were made by both parties, all of whom were residents of the union, and who, gathering in arms near Sancoik, for a while threatened each other. The adherents of Vermont so greatly outnumbered those of New York--only about eighty strong--that the latter did not dare to attack them, and the New York commander, Colonel Yates, applied in December, 1781, to General Gansevoort at Albany for reinforcements. Governor Chittenden now called out the militia of the original territory of Vermont, and Colonel Walbridge marched from Bennington with his regiment to Sancoik. Colonel Yates at once withdrew his force, and, on his retreat, met General Gansevoort, who, after an unsuccessful endeavor to obtain a detachment from General Stark at Saratoga, was marching into the disturbed region with eighty men, all that he had been able to raise from four regiments, one of which furnished only the colonel and one private. General Gansevoort demanded by what authority and for what purpose Colonel Walbridge invaded the territory of New York; and Walbridge answered that he had come to protect those who held allegiance to Vermont, and, though he did not desire warfare, he would not be answerable for the consequences if the liberty and property of such persons were interfered with. Finding his insignificant and indifferent force confronted by 500 Green Mountain Boys, who were very much in earnest, General Gansevoort wisely withdrew, and left "those turbulent sons of freedom" masters of the bloodless field. Thus, most fortunately, no actual hostilities in either quarter resulted from these threatening demonstrations. But the fire was only covered, not quenched, and its smouldering embers were ready to burst into a blaze of fratricidal war whenever fanned by the first mischievous wind. That this did not happen was due to the wise and kindly advice given by Washington in a letter to Governor Chittenden, dated January 1, 1782. Admitting that Congress had virtually acknowledged the right of Vermont to independence in its late action, and its willingness to confirm it, provided the new State was confined to her originally claimed limits, he strongly urged the relinquishment of Vermont's claims to the East and West Unions. "You have nothing to do but withdraw your jurisdiction to the confines of your own limits, and obtain an acknowledgment of independence and sovereignty."