in Manchester  
London, 2 June 1853  

2 June. 1853.  
28, Deanstreet, Soho.  

Dear Frederic!  

The first half of the 201st note has arrived. I am writing to you before my walk to the Museum, hence still very early in the day.  

The enclosed declaration of the great Willich to the *Neuenglandzeitung* I would have sent you long ago, had I not presumed that Weydemeyer had sent the thing to you. The draft of this second declaration is genuine, authentic Willich. The others write “essays,” he writes “facts,” and one must have stood “in personal relation” to him for the slander to lose its sting. Then the little partisan manoeuvre. He does not reply to his own Hirsch. Instead, he explains to the public the “motives” why Marx does not refute his Hirsch. And now he has found the terrain where he can move about with a certain virtuosity. And the noble man “reluctantly” hands over the facts to the “public.” Naturally, he preferred to whisper them secretly behind the beer-bench to the philistines and to peddle them across two continents by “smuggling route” for three years, *juvante Kinkelio*. Then the manoeuvre of keeping the public on tenterhooks. It forgets the facts under which he is writhing. It is on the alert for the facts that the “critical writers” are to annihilate. In so doing, the noble man is also “distinguished,” as befits a “public character.” When he answers, it is not to the crude “agents” of Marx, but to the “skilful” quill-drivers. Finally, he lets the public understand that his opponents only act so impudently because they believed in his “resolution” to withdraw, and the important man announces with a drumbeat that he has “changed” his resolution.  

*Tout ça n’est pas trop mal pour un vieux souslietenant.* As for the style of declaration No. 2, however – bad as it is, it is nonetheless apocryphal. Other hands have passed over it, probably those of Madame Anneke. In any case, the necessary supplement to Tellering’s brochure will now be published by Herr Willich, and since the shit has once been brought before the public, *il faut aller jusqu’au bout*. If Weydemeyer, Cluss et Co. operate skilfully, they would now have to ride a tilt at Willich and in advance break the point and novelty of the surprises he reserves for the public. *Nous verrons.*  

The praise you bestow on my “boyish” English has had a very encouraging effect on me. What I mainly lack is, first, grammatical sureness, and second, facility in certain secondary turns of phrase without which all ready-witted writing is impossible. Herr “Tribüne” has placed a remark at the head of their paper on my second article on Gladstone’s budget, in which it draws the public’s attention to the “masterly exposition” and declares it has seen nowhere “a more able criticism” and does “not expect to see one.” That is all right. But in the following article it disgraces me again by printing a completely insignificant item of mine (intended to be insignificant) under my name, while it appropriates your “Swiss” piece. I shall write to Dana that it is very “flattering” to me when they sometimes use the things as a leader. Only, they should then kindly not put my name under insignificant items. I have now, among other things, sent the asses 2 articles on “China” in relation to England. If your time permits and you happen to feel like writing about something, Switzerland, the Orient, France, England or cotton or Denmark, do so from time to time, as I am now forcibly working away at the fellow’s purse to cover the loss of 3 weeks. If you send me something of the sort from time to time – *de omnibus rebus* – I can always place it, for you know that I am the “maid-of-all-work” for these fellows, and it is always easy to link everything to everything, to any day. πάντα ἕν πάντα.  

As regards the Hebrews and Arabs, your letter was very interesting to me. Moreover, one can demonstrate 1) a general relationship among all Oriental tribes, between the settlement of one part of them and the continued nomadising of the other, ever since history has been taking place. 2) At the time of Muhammad, the trade route from Europe to Asia had considerably altered and the towns of Arabia that had a large share in the trade to India, etc., were commercially in decline, which in any case gave an impetus. 3) As for religion, the question resolves itself into the general and therefore easily answerable one: Why does the history of the East appear as a history of religions?  

On the formation of Oriental towns, one can read nothing more brilliant, vivid and striking than old François Bernier (for nine years physician to Aurangzeb): “Voyages contenant la description des etats du Grand Mogol etc.” He also sets out nicely the military system, the way these great armies fed themselves, etc. On both points he remarks, among other things: “Die Cavallerie bildet den Haupttheil, die Infanterie nicht so groß als das Gerücht geht, si ce n’est qu’avec les véritables gens de guerre, on ne confond tous ces gens de service et de bazars ou marchés qui suivent l’armée; car, en ce cas-la, je croirais bien qu’ils auraient raison de mettre les 2 et 300000 hommes dans l’armée seule qui est aves le roi, et quelquefois encore davantage, comme quand on est assuré qu’il sera longtemps absent de la ville capitale; ce qui ne semblera pas si fort étonnant à qui saura l’étrange embarras de tentes, de cuisines, de hardes, de meubles et de femmes méme assez souvent, et par conséquent d’éléphans, de chameaux, de bœufs, de chevaux, de porte-faix, de fourrageurs, vivandiers, marchands de toutes sortes et serviteurs qui trainent aprés soi ces armées, et à qui saura l’état et gouvernement particulier du pays, à savoir que le roi est le seul et unique propriétaire de toutes les terres du royaume, d’où vient par une certaine suite nécessaire que toute une ville capitale comme Delhi ou Agra ne vit presque que de la milice, et est par conséquent obligée de suivre le roi quand il va en campagne pour quelque temps, ces villes-la n’étant ni ne pouvant être rien moins qu’un Paris, mais n’étant proprement qu’un camp d’armée un peu mieux et plus commodément placé qu’en rase campagne.”  

On the occasion of the march of the Great Mogul to Kashmir, with an army of 400,000 men, etc., he says: “la difficulté est de savoir d’où et comment peut subsister une si grande armée en campagne, une si grande quantité d’hommes et d’animaux. Il ne faut pour cela que supposer, ce qui est tres vrai, que les Indiens sont fort sobres et fort simples dans leur manger, et que de tout ce grand nombre de cavaliers, il n’y a pas la 10°”, ni même la 20°”‘ partie, qui, dans la marche, mange de la viande ; pourvu qu’ils aient leur kicheris ou mélange de riz et d’autres légumes, sur lesquels ils versent du beurre roux quand ils sont cuits, ils sont contents. Il faut encore savoir que les chameaux resistent extrêmement au travail, à la faim et à la soif, vivent de peu et mangent de tout, et qu’ aussitôt que l’armée est arrivée les chameliers les mènent brouter à la campagne, où ils mangent tout ce qu’ils attrapent; de plus que les mémes marchands qui entretiennent les bazars dans Delhi, sont obligés de les entretenir dans les campagnes, ebenso die petits marchands etc. … enfin à l’égard du fourrage, tous ces pauvres gens s’en vont rödant de tous les côtés dans les villages pour en acheter et y gagner quelque chose, et que leur grand et ordinaire refuge est de râper, avec une espéce de truelle, les campagnes entiéres, battre ou laver cette petite herbe qu’ils ont rapée, et l’apporter vendre à l’armée …”  

Bernier rightly finds the basic form for all phenomena of the East – he speaks of Turkey, Persia, Hindustan – in the fact that no private landed property exists. This is the real *clef*, even to the Oriental heaven.  

Since things don’t seem to be working out with Borchardt, I do think that the fellow will be willing to obtain recommendations for Lupus from Steinthal, etc., to London merchants. You can at least force that out of him, and that would be very important for Lupus.  

What do you say to the failure of the “financial scheme for reducing the national debt” of the Hudibrastic Rodolpho Gladstone?  

The *Journal des Débats* gave utterance the day before yesterday to the true secret why Russia is so insolent. Either, it says, the continent must expose its independence to the Russian danger or it must expose itself to war and that is “*la révolution sociale*.” Only the wretched *Débats* forgets that Russia fears the revolution just as much as Mr Bertin and that the whole trick now consists in who can give himself the most semblance of “non-fear.” But England and France – the official ones – are so miserable that if Nicholas holds firm, he can accomplish anything.  

*Vale faveque.*  

C. M.  

Lassalle has been written to and he will probably be ready to receive a few hundred copies of the brochure and distribute them in Germany. Now the question arises, how to get them across? Charles thought, when I was in Manchester, that it could be done by packing them with commercial goods? Ask him about it now.  

P.S. The dispatch of the letter has been delayed, and thus I can still afterwards inform you of the arrival of the book parcel and the second half of the note.