Letter to Karl Marx, November 1, 1865

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 December 1865


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 1 December 1865

Dear Moor,

Enclosed on the new month's account a further two five-pound notes, please to confirm receipt to me at 86 Mornington Street or if possible telegraph tomorrow early in the morning to 7 Southgate, as I'm not registering the letter this time because of the fuss.

As far as I can tell from the German newspapers, Prof. Eckardt[2] is a South German democrat, one of the Swabians and Bavarians who seceded from the National Association.[3] It is not clear to me how we are supposed to collaborate with him, it's something like Kolatschek.

That the gentlemen from the Social-Demokrat would like to resume their ties with us is typical of that riff-raff. They think everyone is as much of a swine as they are. Bismarck seems to have realised how powerless they are and therefore to have thrown them out, so at last there's a trial and Schweitzer has been sentenced to 1 year of imprisonment.[4] B. Becker has now also detached himself from Schweitzer and given up his post as President of Mankind, so that everything is now falling apart just splendidly. So that it was not our intervention, but our non-intervention that put paid to the whole caboodle. This no doubt means that 'Lassalleanism' in its official form will soon come to the end of the line.

Every post brings news of worse atrocities in Jamaica.[5] The letters from the English officers about their heroic deeds against unarmed NIGGERS are beyond words. Here the spirit of the English army is at last expressing itself quite uninhibitedly. 'THE SOLDIERS ENJOY IT.' Even The Manchester Guardian has had to come out against the authorities in Jamaica this time.

Regarding The Workman's Advocate, I will see what can be done, meanwhile perhaps you could send the paper to me. You have no notion at all of the TROUBLE and chasing around involved here in obtaining these PENNY WEEKLY PAPERS which are not worth the bother to the NEWSAGENTS. You still do not get them even if you order and pay for them in advance. Or put MRS Burns down for a subscription with an order for the PAPER to be sent here by post.

Every good wish to MRS and MISSES.

Your

F. E.

G/P 62563. London, 4 August 1865—£5 E/M 35757. Liverpool, 15 May—5

How much is the bill for that you accepted, and when is it due?

  1. ↑ In a letter TO MARX of 8 October 1865 Lothar Bucher invited him to contribute to the official organ of the Prussian government. Marx's reply letter to Bücher has not been discovered. Later, in 1878, Marx wrote a special item, 'Herr Bucher', concerning this offer, and gave a rebuff to this agent of Bismarck's in another article, 'Reply to Bucher's "Declaration" ' (see present edition, Vol. 24).
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 198.
  3. ↑ The National Association (Deutscher National-Verein) was a party of the German liberal bourgeoisie which advocated the unification of Germany (without Austria) in a centralised state under the supremacy of the Prussian monarchy. Its inaugural meeting was held in Frankfurt am Main in September 1859. The National Association was dissolved in November 1867, after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and the establishment of the North German Confederation.
  4. ↑ On 24 November 1865 Schweitzer was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for the political articles in Der Social-Demokrat. However, in May 1866 he was temporarily released for health reasons and amnestied after the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.
  5. ↑ The mass Negro uprising in Jamaica, the British colony in the West Indies, took place in October 1865. It was caused by the severe exploitation of the Negroes by the colonists, though slavery had been abolished on the island in 1833. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the Governor of Jamaica, General Eyre. The atrocities perpetrated by Eyre caused public outrage in Britain, and the British government was compelled to dismiss him from his post.