On June 24, Dickinson informed Washington the efforts he and Maxwell were making to slow Clinton were having little impact, and that he believed Clinton was deliberately lingering in New Jersey to provoke a battle. Washington convened another war council in which the twelve officers who attended all recommended varying degrees of caution. Lee argued that a victory would be of little benefit while a defeat would do irrevocable damage to the revolutionary cause. He preferred not to risk the Continental Army against a professional, well-trained enemy until French intervention swayed the odds in the Americans' favor and proposed that Clinton should be allowed to proceed to New York unmolested. Four other generals agreed. Even the most aggressive of the remainder wanted to avoid a major engagement; Brigadier General Anthony Wayne suggested the dispatch of 2,500–3,000 additional troops to reinforce Maxwell and Dickinson that would enable them, with a third of the army, to make "an Impression in force." In the end, a compromise was agreed in which 1,500 picked men would reinforce the vanguard to "act as occasion may serve." To Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who attended as an aide, the council "would have done honor to the most honorab society of midwives, and to them only." A disappointed Washington sent the token force under the command of Brigadier General Charles Scott.