I Received your polite favour of the middle of last month, amid such a hurry of business & Expectation that I omitted answering it--this Day I am Honor’d with your’s of the 29th by Major Stewart. Nothing mentional has happen’d till this Day we are informed that the Enemy have abandoned Crown Point, Chimney Point, &c., entirely, Determined on Winter Quarters in Canada. Its a prudent Choice I fancy, as we should not have parted with ours to them at a low Price & a high one they could not afford. I wish to have it confirm’d--Delay to us is Victory--& Victory procured without loss of Blood is more Glorious than any other. You must excuse my being so concise, my Best Compliments attend the Ladies & Poor Wilkinson, Jr. I am Dr Sir Your very Sincere & most obedient Servant J. TRUMBULL PART OF A LETTER OF WASHINGTON TO BENJAMIN HARRISON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF WAR _Dated at_ MIDDLEBROOK, N. J., _May 5, 1779_. (As the letter covers ten folio pages, we give only the salient points of it. It was sold in the Bishop Hurst collection, last Spring, for $1065, the largest price ever paid for a Washington letter). The letter commences by referring to some statements in a previous letter recommending certain measures, and reiterates their necessity, and that if longer delayed “_I shall not scruple to add that our affairs are irretrievably lost_.” He also predicts that the result will be “_the fate of our paper money and with it a general crash of all things_.” Washington then proceeds: “The measures of Ministry are taken, and the whole strength and resources of the Kingdom will be exerted against it in this campaign; while we have been slumbering and sleeping, or disputing upon trifles, contenting ourselves with laughing at the impotence of Great Britain.... Accts. from London to the 9th. of March, have fixed me in the opinion that G. Britain will strain every nerve to distress us this campaign, but where or in what manner her principal forces will be employed I cannot determine.... My own opinion of the matter is that, they will keep a respectable force at (New York), and push their operations vigorously to the Southward, where we are most vulnerable, and least able to afford succour.... She may, cercumstanced as we are, give a very unfavourable turn to that pleasing slumber, we have been in for the last eight months.... From present appearances I have not the smallest doubt but that we shall be hard pushed in every quarter. This campaign will be the grand, and if unsuccessful, more than probable the last struggle of Great Britain.... They are raising all the Indians from North to South which their arts and money can procure, and a powerful diversion they will make in this quarter with the aid they expect from Canada.”