Letter to Hermann Engels, March 22, 1866

ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS

IN BARMEN

Manchester, 22 March 1866

Dear Hermann,

Your document is with the LAWYER. Unfortunately, he was out today when I called, so I can't tell you whether he has already sent it to Liverpool, nor what progress has been made with the relevant fair copies. But I shall call again one day soon to prod him.

I am writing to you today about the statement of my account which you sent to me and which had to wait until I had a quiet day to look through, as your entries for the last half year of 1864 have been done quite differently from ours. I therefore had to go through all the stuff again from the beginning and have at last sorted it out. The items coincide with the exception of the remittances which, according to your letter of 20 July 1864, were credited direct to my account with F. Engels & Co., so I shall presumably find these items in my statement of account with F. Engels & Co. These items are:

Remittance via Apolda £ 2.
2.
2 1864, 30 June (» Munich >»
1.
2.
— 1» Rieslingen »
8.
19.
6 3 July » London tot. » 287.
3.
3

I find that, according to your statements of account I am actually losing money m respect of the transferred balances debited to me here. The exact calculation of the difference for the 18 months amounts to £ 1. 14. 9, and in future I shall therefore take the liberty of sending you a statement every 6 months for I naturally have no alternative but to accept the statements of the firm here. For my convenience, I am still keeping your account here separate as well.

Please be so good as to send me a summary statement of my account with F. Engels & Co. as soon as possible, so that I can make up my private account-book. And from mid-year 1864, of course, as I have had no statement for this account from you since then at all—as far as I am aware. (If you didn't make up the account in mid-year 1864, then from the beginning of 1864.)

Business has got better again since last September; we have been fully occupied since then, at present even excessively so, and are setting up new DT-machines. Prices have improved too, and in the last half-year of 1865 we have even made enough to cover my costs from June 1864 onwards, with a little left over for myself as well; in the first year of my PARTNERSHIP we didn't make a brass farthing, you know, even without writing anything off for machinery. We must be doing splendid business now, but if cotton should drop below 18d. for MIDDLING ORLEANS owing to the greater supply, we shall lose everything again. However, I'm not expecting that to happen; I think good American cotton will, by and large, hold at approx. 19d., while Surat may admittedly fall a lot. Moreover, I think we are not getting more cotton than we need and will, by and large, stay at approx. 19d. for MIDDLING ORLEANS until about the autumn, when there may perhaps be some more speculating, which will force prices up.

I shall be writing to Mother^[1] in a day or two, as soon as I can manage it; I received her letter last Monday and was glad to learn she is well again now. My kindest regards to her and all our brothers and sisters from

Your

Friedrich

Apropos. As you know, the capital credited to me here amounted to a little over £13,000 as far back as 30 June 1864, and since I am under no obligation to have more than £ 12,000 in the business, there is no need for you to provide cover for purchases through us; or I could send you some remittances, especially as approx. another £ 300 is due in interest at the end of June. I can also make payments to Funke on your account if you so wish; in this way, you can draw approx. £ 1,500 up to 30 June, or at once. Only please do not draw bills on us, since Gottfried^[2] objects, he thinks people might regard it as improper practice, the name of the firms being one and the same.

Anton^[3] already has 4-5 patents now. There is no stopping him, every other day a new patent of his is announced in the press.