[Manchester, about 6 May 1851] 

Dear Marx, 

You will get the Post Office Order tomorrow or the day after. 
Today our bookkeeper is again without casn. 

Since when have you been using the enclosed beautiful seal on 
your letters—or has there been a mishap? 

Il parait donc‘ that the whole of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung will 
foregather in London this summer, minus, perhaps, Freiligrath *' 
and the honorarius* Burgers. I am delighted to hear that Lupus is 
definitely coming; incidentally, I know for certain that the 
Auin.orrices here are far less strict than before and hence all 

a head on - © Mary - ¢ It would seem, then - 4 honourable 

that to-do about the ban on sending refugees here is sheer 
humbug. 

The mandrake’s signature to the Geneva address is strange 
indeed— une bévue inconcevable*—further proof that one must 
maintain A SHARP LOOK-OUT AFTER THESE Young MEN and that they must be 
kept on a tight rein. It can only be a bévue; the little chap’s letters 
were over-zealous and he may have believed that what he was 
doing was a wonderful stroke of genius. He must be rigorously 
questioned, upbraided and told, surtout pas de zéle!? 

I shall shortly tell you of an economic treatise written by Welling- 
ton in 181] on Frere rrape and monopoly in colonial trade. It’s 
a curious thing and, since it relates to the Spanish and not the 
English colonies, he can play at being a Free-Trader although right at 
the outset he rails at merchants like the dyed-in-the-wool soldier 
and aristocrat he is. It never occurred to him that he would later 
have to help apply these principles in the English colonies. But 
that’s the irony of it. In return for his undeserved victory over 
Napoleon, the old Irishman subsequently had to yield to Cobden 
and, en économie politique, to pass under the Caudine yoke‘! of 
FREE-TRADE. World history does indeed give occasion for a great 
many pleasing reflections! 

The dissolution of the Democratic Provisional Government fo 
Germany in London“ fills me with sorrow. Such a fine opportunit 
for the jackasses to hold themselves up to public ridicule will no 
readily recur. On the other hand the great Franz Raveaux has 
reopened his cliquish polemic in the Koélnische Zeitung with Mr 
Pau] Franck and other jackasses. He is again ripe for election to 
some national mad-house in which to declare: ‘Gentlemen, this ts a 
very great day for the city of Cologne!) The oaf is now in 
Brussels. Our friend Engels, the Commandant, has become 
General and First Commandant, and the philistines gave a dinner 
for him at which ‘our Stupp’ proposed his health. So you see, you 
can still get somewhere, even if your name is Engels. And, in 
returning thanks, that fat old swine, once a lieutenant under 
Napoleon, expressed his pleasure at the specifically Prussian spirit 
both of the celebration and of the city of Cologne. 

4 an inconceivable blunder (reference to Dronke’s signature to the address sent from 
Geneva to the organisers of the ‘banquet of the equal’ on 24 February, see this volume, 
p. 342) - > above all no zeal! (words ascribed to Talleyrand) - ¢ in political 
economy - 4 i.e. the Committee for German Affairs (see this volume, p. 342) - € This 
sentence is in a local dialect in the original - f ‘Kéln, 2. Mai’, Kélnische Zeitung, No. 
106, 3 May 1851. 

13* 

I am, by the way, morally convinced that Willich and Co. are 
hatching an ambitious plan for the revolutionisation of England 
during the Exhibition, although it’s equally certain that they won’t 
raise a finger. It won’t be the first or last time. 

The 2nd srgup on my letters is for late posting. The stamp enables 
me to get the letter off by the same train 1'/, hours after the 
ordinary post office has closed. In any case it’s the firm that pays. 

Your 
F. E.