10 August, 1. Maitland Park Road, Haverstock Hill, N.W.

Dear Citizen Koll,

After I had received £4 1s. 6d. from Lessner for the Pest tailors, I read in German newspapers that the tailors’ strike in Pest was over. I therefore wrote immediately to Jakob Holländer (under the address Johann Travnick etc., which Holländer himself had given to the Workers’ Association). In my letter I informed him that I had received £4 1s. 6d. from the German Workers’ Association for transmission to him, but that I was reading in German papers that the strike was over, and therefore asked him whether – if this news was correct – it would be agreeable to the Pest tailors if I paid the money to the fund for the French refugees. I asked him for an immediate answer. As no answer came, I paid the money (in the name of the Workers’ Association) to the refugees’ fund on 27 June (as you see from the enclosed receipt). This was done on the understanding that if the Pest workers, through their correspondent Holländer, demanded a different disposal of the money from me, the £4 1s. 6d. which I had paid from the refugees’ fund in the name of the Workers’ Association were to be regarded as a personal contribution on my part, and I would then send the money to Pest for the Workers’ Association. However, no answer came from Pest and I considered the matter settled. In consequence of your letter, however, I have now written to Bachruch (a Hungarian worker in Paris) and requested him to enquire by a safe route of Jacob Holländer in Pest and to urge him to answer my letter immediately. I [...] I request you at the same time to inform the Association of my resignation from it.

Your most devoted Karl Marx