They then marched in military parade, with fixed bayonets, to the state-house, in which congress and the executive council of the state were sitting; and, after placing sentinels at the doors, sent in a written message, threatening the executive of the state with the vengeance of an enraged soldiery, if their demands were not gratified in twenty minutes.

Although these threats were not directed particularly against congress, the government of the union was grossly insulted, and those who administered it were blockaded for several hours by licentious soldiers.

After remaining in this situation about three hours, the members separated, having agreed to reassemble at Princeton.
On receiving information of this outrage, the Commander-in-chief detached fifteen hundred men under the command of Major General Howe, to suppress the mutiny.

His indignation at this insult to the civil authority, and his mortification at this misconduct of any portion of the American troops, were strongly marked in his letter to the president of congress.
"While," said he, "I suffer the most poignant distress in observing that a handful of men, contemptible in numbers, and equally so in point of service, (if the veteran troops from the southward have not been seduced by their example,) and who are not worthy to be called soldiers, should disgrace themselves and their country as the Pennsylvania mutineers have done by insulting the sovereign authority of the United States, and that of their own, I feel an inexpressible satisfaction, that even this behaviour can not stain the name of the American soldiery.

It can not be imputed to, or reflect dishonour on, the army at large; but, on the contrary, it will, by the striking contrast it exhibits, hold up to public view the other troops in the most advantageous point of light.