[Manchester,] 25 May 1866 
Mornington Street 

Dear Moor, 

The panic has, at all events, come much too soon and may 
possibly spoil a good solid crisis for us which would otherwise have 
occurred in 1867 or 1868. If we had not simultaneously chanced 
to have the big fall in cotton, we would barely have been affected 
by it here. The collapse of the umrrep uiasmity and Financial 
swindles had after all been long foreseen and hardly affected our 
trade at all. But the colossal losses on cotton which occurred 
simultaneously threaten to make it a grave matter here, so many 
houses here and in Liverpool are entangled in it through their 
branches in Bombay, etc., and as it occurred at the same time as 
the money panic and the 10% bank-rate, it may be very grave for 
those who are holding much cotton. Here at least the business is 
far from over yet. 

If the Austrians are canny enough not to attack, that will surely 
put the cat among the pigeons in the Prussian army. The fellows 
have never been as rebellious as they are in the present 
mobilisation. Unfortunately, one only learns the tiniest part of 
what is happening, but even that is enough to prove that a war of 
attack is impossible with this army. Once these lads are concen- 
trated in large numbers, and begin to count themselves and 
discover that °/, of the army is of one mind, and if they then have 
to hang around under arms for 3-4 weeks during the congress, 
things will inevitably lead to a crisis, and one fine morning 
obedience will be refused. Something is bound to spark it off; and 
with an army like that, once one battalion starts, it will spread like 
wildfire. But even if an open outbreak were to be avoided, it is 
certain that this army, with its moraze as it is, and commanded by 
the old William, with Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince? 
under him commanding the wings, would at once be beaten 
beyond salvation by the furious Austrians under Benedek, who 
will have none of the Archdukes, nor any interference in the 

a Frederick William 

appointment of his staff, and has 300-360,000 men under him. 
The old jackass* knows that, too, and I am convinced that he will 
withdraw as soon as ever he can, precisely because of the mood in 
his armies. What I said in my pamphlet” last year about the 
character of the mobilised Prussian army, has been fully confirmed. 

Delightful is the embarrassment of the National Association- 
ites *? since Bismarck has plagiarised their programme; those 
fellows will now have to oppose their own Great-Prussia phrases, 
exactly as the Kreuz-Zeitung‘ did with its own feudal phrases. 

The London correspondent of The Manchester Guardian reports 
that in this solemn performance of state Louis Bonaparte has 
made the following conditions the price for his approval: Sardinia 
from Italy, Luxemburg, Saarlouis and Saarbrücken from Prussia 
(Landau is the only thing he has forgotten)—and that is the 
minimum.‘ 

I shall see if I can complete my article on Poland *** tomorrow. 
To be quite frank, it is a sacrifice for me to provide that jackass 
Miall with contributions when one is for ever being explicitly 
reminded that the editors do not accept responsibility for the 
section from contributors, whilst they obviously do so for the 
asininities printed elsewhere in the paper.*” If I had known 
beforehand how our pieces were going to be treated in a paper‘ 
which is after all supposed to be our own—or at least to belong to 
the workers’ party, and that we were merely going to be thus 
tolerated in it, and we are supposed to be grateful, as it were, into 
the bargain,—I would not have written a single line. But you were 
sick at the time, and I didn’t want to do anything that might 
disturb your convalescence. But I was vexed by it nonetheless. All 
the same, one has said ‘A’ and must see that one also says ‘B’. 

Kindest regards. 

Your 
F. E.