A Reply to Kossuth’s “Secretary”

By Karl Marx

A Reply to Kossuth’s “Secretary”

From the English.

[New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3656, January 4, 1853]

To the Editor of the N.Y. Tribune.

London, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1852

Sir,

Some time ago I forwarded to you a statement with regard to my last correspondence on the doings of Kossuth and Mazzini, which has raised such a clamour in the American press. That statement—in which I stated, inter alia, that the different articles my correspondence has given rise to were wholly unknown to Kossuth himself, and that I had rather intended to warn, etc., than to attack the parties alluded to—contained all that I deemed necessary to say on the subject, until I received the latest American papers containing a sort of official contradiction of my remarks, coming from the pen of an alleged Secretary of Mr. Kossuth. With regard to that “document” I have to inform you that Kossuth, on my inquiry, has assured me:

1. That at present he does not employ any secretary at all;

2. That the said “contradiction” was not written with his authority;

3. That he was not even aware of it, before he received my communication.

After this “authorised explanation” I shall not recur to the subject, leaving the uninvited advocates to console themselves upon their uncalled-for zeal.

Your Private Correspondent