Allow me to call, through the medium of your paper, the attention 
of the public to a fact in which the honour of the British nation is, 
perhaps, more or less interested. 

You are aware that the different continental governments, after 
the defeats of the movement party in 1849, succeeded in driving the 
numerous political refugees, more particularly the Germans, the 
Hungarians, the Italians and the Poles, from one place of asylum to 
another, until they found protection and tranquillity in this country. 

There are certain governments on the Continent, whose animosity 
against their political opponents seems not to be satisfied with this 
result. The Prussian government is of this number. After having 
succeeded in concentrating most of the Prussian refugees in this 
country the Berlin Cabinet is evidently trying to make them, 
somehow or other, depart for America. The same parties who at 
home, in their own newspapers (witness the Neue Preussische Zeitung? 
and the Assemblée nationale), represent the English government as a 
committee of Jacobins and of conspirators against the conservatives 
of all Europe—these same parties affect a most suspicious anxiety 
for the tranquillity of this country, by denouncing to the British 
government the foreign refugees as interfering with English politics 
and as being connected with the attempt at assassinating the King of 
Prussia? 

I have the honour of belonging to those, whom the persecution of 
the Prussian government has followed everywhere they went. Editor 
of the Rheinische Zeitung (of Cologne) in 1842, and of the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung in 1848 and 1849, both of which papers were 

directly or indirectly stopped by the forcible interference of the 
Prussian government, I have been expelled from France in 1845 and 

“ The Neue Preussische Zeitung Nos. 116, 117, May 24 and 25, 1850.— Ed. 
» Frederick William IV.— Ed. 

1849, from Belgium in 1848, upon the direct request and by the 
influence of the Prussian embassy; and during my stay in Prussia, in 
1848 and 1849, I had about a dozen political actions brought against 
me, the whole of which were, however, abandoned after my having 
been twice acquitted by the jury.?* 

That even in this country, I am not lost sight of by the Prussian 
government, is proved to me by numerous warnings which I 
received of late, stating that the English government, upon the 
ground of similar denunciations, intended to take steps against me; 
and by the fact that for several days past some individuals place 
themselves at my very door, taking down notes every time any one 
comes or leaves the house. It is further proved by the Neue Preussische 
Zeitung,’ which stated, some time ago, that I was travelling through 
Germany and had stayed a fortnight in Berlin, whilst I can prove by 
my landlords and other Englishmen that I never for a moment left 
London since I arrived here last year. This same ultra-royalist paper, 
after the attempt of the madman Sefeloge, brought my pretended 
journey to Berlin into connexion with that attempt; and yet this 
paper ought to know best who, if anyone, is connected with this 
affair, inasmuch as Sefeloge is a member of Section No. 2 of the 
ultra-royalist society the Treubund, and never was connected with any 
but staff-officers employed in the Berlin War Office. It is moreover 
proved by the presence, here in London, of Prussian agents 
provocateurs who, a fortnight before Sefeloge’s attempt, presented 
themselves to me and some of my friends, preaching the necessity of 
such an attempt and hinting even at the existence of a conspiracy got 
up, in Berlin, for this purpose; and who, after having found it 
impossible to make their dupes of us, now frequent Chartist 
meetings, in order to induce the public to believe that the foreign 
refugees take an active part in the English Chartist movement. 

In conclusion allow me to ask you, Sir, and through you the public, 
whether it would be desirable that, upon such authority, the British 
government should be induced to take steps which might more or 
less interfere with the conviction, universally spread, that the British 
laws afford equal protection to whosoever puts his foot upon British 
soil? 

I am, etc. 
; , : Engels’ hand 
Works, first Russ. ed., Vol. XXV, Moscow, Published in English for the first 

1934 time