Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 23, 1859

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 23 September 1859


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
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 23 September [1859]

DEAR Frederic,

BAD NEWS. This time I'm in some doubt whether the business down here CAN BE GOT OVER. There are very nasty difficulties in the way.

I'm also in some doubt about your own affaire. Apart from the scandal—if the fellow's eye is better, if it can be proved that he OFFENDED you first and, further, that he had already agreed to your compromise, etc.— I don't see that,under English law, there is very much he can do. In London you would at worst be fined £2-£5. It seems to me that the purpose of the whole thing is TO OBTAIN MONEY ON FALSE PRETENCES. If the situation here is not to get any worse, I believe it essential that I should be able to send off 'Infantry' to Dana in ABOUT a week or' 10 days from now. Although he said 15 September it certainly won't be too late and in any case he must admit that we have shown good will. The main thing is that it should be not so much profound as prolix.

If, immediately after your arrival in Manchester[1] and after having made inquiries about the 'Englishman',[2] you had departed again, for London, say, and made it known to the swine through a third party that you were on your way to the Continent, you would have been able to come to any arrangement you wanted. This might still be possible for, judging by Allen, etc., all Englishmen now believe that there will be a GENERAL AMNESTY[3] on the Continent and hence are afraid that their debtors will QUIT THE COUNTRY. (After all, the Prussian amnesty is to be on the 15th of October.) Every stratagem should be used against a chap like that.

Salut.., Your

K. M.

  1. ↑ Marx means Engels' return to Manchester on 20 September 1859, after accompanying his parents on a short tour of Scotland (see this volume, p. 490).
  2. ↑ Between January and May 1856 Engels wrote a series of articles on Pan-Slavism for the New-York Daily Tribune, which did not print them. The manuscripts have not been preserved.
  3. ↑ Daniells