ENGELS TO J. H. JOHNSON, J. JOHNSON 
AND G. B. ELLIS 

[London, 15 November 1889] 
(Draft] 

Dear Sirs, 

I have received and considered your letter of the 7th inst.>* It strikes 
me as rather peculiar that you expect me to treat your enquiries as ‘confi- 
dential’, but never offer to extend the same treatment to my reply. Of 
course I cannot undertake such one-sided engagements. 

If I understand you rightly, I am to report to you and eventually name 
the author of any reports I may have heard on board, from passengers, 
officers, or sailors, as far as they may have been disrespectful towards the 
circulating pumps of the City of New York. Such communications, if 
any, could only be made to me in the expectation that I would treat them 
after the manner of gentlemen, and not bring their authors into difficul- 
ties even supposed they had used an unguarded word or two. To act 
otherwise, would in my opinion be to turn common informer. Unless I 
misinterpret what seems to me the clear meaning of your proposal, that 
is what it amounts to; and in that case it is of a naiveté equalled only by 
its refreshing coolness. 

Anyhow, to set your minds at rest, I will tell you that I don’t recol- 
lect that anybody in my presence, cast the slightest slur upon the immac- 
ulate circulating pumps which you have the honour to represent and that 
I neither know nor care who made them. 

I will not condescend to ask you to treat this letter as confidential. A 
perusal of this correspondence by a Continental or American lawyer or 
man of business might lead to some valuable hints as to the manner of 
conducting similar enquiries.