Letter to Karl Marx, January 25, 1858

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 January 1858


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 25 January 1858

Dear Marx,

The letters have all arrived safely. It will be utterly impossible to do the BENGAL REBELLION in the time stipulated and I would advise you, while you are about it, to point out to Mr Dana that, had he been more prompt in agreeing to our proposals and the list we sent him, he would have had all these articles long ago. He can perfectly well fit in BENGAL REBELLION as HINDUSTAN REBELLION or something of the sort.[1] As to the alleged howler,[2] I can't look into it this moment, there being no time, but shall do so tomorrow. The item was taken from Brockhaus'[3] so it will probably be correct.

Lassalle's letter is still up here. I have the material ready for 'Blenheim', 'Borodino' and many more and you will be receiving a LOT on Friday, provided the Indian MAIL doesn't necessitate my doing an article, which seems unlikely judging by the telegraphic despatch. I shall have to look up 'Bidassoa', etc. But what is all this about Dana saying he had already asked for these articles? It's the first I've heard of it.

Harney will have written to tell you that poor Schramm died a week ago on Friday. I have no details yet. I wrote and asked Harney,[4] should he find anything in your handwriting or mine, to take it away and hold it at our disposal—it would be too bad if anything of that kind were allowed to fall into the hands of Mr Rudolf,[5] who has become an out-and-out Prussian. I had not thought Schramm would have any serious attacks before the spring. The poor fellow was putting up a splendid fight against the disease while I was there and, from what I hear, continued to do so until the end. Our old guard is rapidly dwindling away during this long spell of peace!

Business here is very shaky. Every fortnight an attempt is made to push up cotton prices, the moment chosen being when a few spinners have to buy. It succeeds for three or four days and then prices fall again. Generally speaking we are now 5/8d above the lowest point. It's much the same with ourselves. As soon as prices become thoroughly depressed as a result of a fortnight's stagnation, the Indian and Levantine buyers step into the market and force everything up; after that no one wants to buy and prices gradually fall again. Everything is still far from normal. The spinners are going on to full time, not because there is any real demand, but because others are doing so and because they're heartily sick of SHORT TIME. On the whole the spinners' position has deteriorated because the difference in price between raw cotton and yarn has diminished. The Germans are still buying very little. Prospects here are far from brilliant; every day trade suffers a CHECK because of attempts to force up prices and, if that doesn't happen, they say that THERE IS AN IMPROVED FEELING IN THE MARKET. IMPROVED BE DAMNED!

The enclosure for Lupus was a source of great pride and joy to the old man. He sends his warmest regards to the writers. By the way I hardly saw him at all last week; we kept missing one another and later he had a slight touch of tic douloureux.[6] Warm regards to the FAMILY.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ No special article on the 1857 national liberation uprising in India was written for The New American Cyclopaedia. Later the description of this uprising was included in the article 'Hindoostan' published in the Cyclopaedia.—252
  2. ↑ At the end of his article 'Albuera' Engels noted that the siege of the French-held fortress of Badajos (Southwestern Spain) by the allied forces of Britain, Spain and Portugal was raised the day after their victory over the French at Albuera on 16 May 1811 (see present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 10-11). In fact the fortress was besieged by the allies three times during the Peninsular War between Britain and Napoleonic France. The first siege in May 1811 was lifted before the battle of Albuera because of the approaching French reserves. On 25 May, following the victory at Albuera, the allies resumed the siege but they were forced to raise it on 17 June. The allies laid siege to Badajos for the third time in March 1812 and took it on 6 April. As Engels pointed out in his letter to Marx on 18 February 1858 (see this volume, p. 267), the inaccuracy in the article 'Albuera' is accounted for by a mistake in one of the sources he used.—251, 252, 267
  3. ↑ Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 250.
  5. ↑ Rudolf Schramm
  6. ↑ facial neuralgia