London, August 20

Lord John Russell is known as a “letter writer” “ among the
English. In his last missive to Mr. Stuart” he complains ot the
insults to “Old England’”* in the North American papers. Et tu,
Brute!“ It is impossible to speak privately with a respectable
Englishman who will not throw up his hands in astonishment at
this tour de force“ It is well known that from 1789 to 1815 English
journalism broke all records in its scurrilous hate attacks on the
French nation. And yet it has broken its own record this past year
by its “malignant brutality’! against the United States! A few
recent examples may suffice.

“We owe all our moral support,” says The Times, “to our kin” (the Southern

slaveholders), “who are fighting so bravely and staunchly for their freedom, against
a mixed race of robbers and oppressors.”

To this the New York Evening Post (the Abolitionist organ)
remarks:

“Are these English lampoon-writers, these descendants of Britons, Danes,
Saxons, Celts, Normans and Dutchmen, of such pure blood that all other peoples
are mixed races as compared with them?”

4 Marx uses the English phrase and gives the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

b J. Russell [Letter to W. Stuart], “Foreign-office, July 28, 1862”, The Times,
No. 24323, August 13, 1862.— Ed.

© Marx uses the English phrase.— Ed.

4d Caesar’s exclamation at seeing Marcus Brutus, his relative and favourite,
among his assassins (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 1).— Ed.

© Feat of strength or skill.— Ed.

f Marx uses the English phrase and gives the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

Russell’s Protest Against American Rudeness 93]

Shortly after the foregoing passage was published, The Times, in
bold Garamond type, called President Lincoln “a respectable
buffoon”, his cabinet ministers “a gang of rogues and riffraff”,
and the army of the United States “an army whose officers are
Yankee swindlers and whose privates are German thieves”. And
Lord John Russell, not content with the laurels of his ic to
the Bishop: of Durham and Sir James Hudson in Turin,’*" dares
to speak, in his letter to Stuart, of the “insults of the North
American press” to England.

Yet there is a limit to everything. In spite of malignant
impertinence and nasty rancour, official England will keep the
peace with the “Yankee swindlers” and confine its deep syin-
pathies with the high-minded vendors of human blood in the
South to blotting-paper phrases, and isolated smuggling ventures
for a rise in the price of grain is no joke, and any conflict with the
Yankees would now add a food famine to the cotton famine.

England has long since ceased to live off its own grain
production. In 1857, 1858 and 1859 it imported grain and flour
to the amount of 66 milhon pounds sterling, and in 1860, 186]
and 1862 for 118 million pounds sterling. As for the quantity of
grain and flour imported, it was 10,278,774 quarters” in 1859,
14,484,976 quarters in 1860 and 16,094,914 quarters in 1861. In
the last five years alone, therefore, grain imports have risen by 50
per cent.

England is now in fact already satisfying half of its grain
requirements with imports. And there is every probability that
next year will add at least 30 per cent to this importation, we
mean 30 per cent to the cost price, since the very large harvest in
the United States will prevent any excessive rise in grain prices.
The extensive reports from all the farming districts that the Mark
Lane Express’ and The Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette
have just published virtually prove that the grain harvest of this
year will be from '/, to '/, below the average harvest. Just as
after the peace treaty of 1815 Lord Brougham said that England,
by its national debt of a thousand million, gave Europe a pledge of

« J. Russell, “To the Right Reverend the Bishop of Durham. Downing Street,
Nov. 4”, The Times, No. 20640, November 7, 1850; [Despatch addressed to the
British Minister at Turin], “Foreign-office, Oct. 27°, The Times, No. 23769,
November 5, 1860.— Ed.

* “Review of the British Corn Trade, during the Past Week”, The Mark Lane
Express and Agricultural Journal, No. 1599, August 18, 1862.— Ed.

17*

“good behaviour”,’ so this year’s grain deficit gives the United

States the best security that England “will not break the Queen’s

peace”?

I have been shown a letter from one of Garibaldi’s best friends
in Genoa, from which I give some excerpts.
Among other things, it says:

“The last letters of Garibaldi and various officers in his camp arrived here
yesterday (August 16). They are dated August 12. All of them breathe the
unshakable determination of the general to keep to his programme: ‘Rome or
death!’ and contain peremptory orders to this effect to his friends. On the other

"side, positive orders went out yesterday from Turin to General Cugia to proceed to
the ultimate acts of violence, i.e. to attack the volunteers with guns and bayonets
and to capture Garibaldi and his friends, if he should refuse to lay down his arms
in twenty-four hours. If the troops obey orders, a grave catastrophe is imminent.
The decision to resort to extreme measures was taken as the result of a telegram from
Paris, whose tenor is: “The Emperor will not condescend to negotiation with the
Italian Government until Garibaldi is disarmed.’ If Rattazzi had loved his country
more than his office, he would have resigned and let Ricasoli or some other less
unpopular minister take his place. He would have considered the fact that taking
Louis Bonaparte’s side against Italy, instead of Italy’s side against Bonaparte,
means endangering the monarchy he professes to serve. If Italian blood is shed at
Italian hands in Sicily, that is not Garibaldi’s fault, for his slogan is: ‘Long live the
Italian army!, and the enthusiastic manner in which this army is received
everywhere proves what obedience there is to Garibaldi. But, if the army should
shed the blood of the volunteers, who would dare to count on quiet tolerance on
the part of the people?”