{London,] 23 November 1859 

Dear Freiligrath, 

I have just received a copy of your letter to Liebknecht* in 
which the following passage occurs: 
‘I possess only one letter from Vogt,°°8 dated 1 April 1859. This letter, as Marx 

conceded only last Saturday, does not contain a single syllable that might be used to 
substantiate a charge against Vogt.’ 

Since accuracy is desirable in matters of this kind, I must 
register a formal protest in regard to this passage. 

Firstly, I conceded nothing. To concede (concédere) presupposes a 
debate in which one of the assertions originally put forward is 
withdrawn and the opposing view accepted. Nothing of the kind 
happened between us. The initiative was mine. I told you 
something; I conceded nothing. The facts were as follows: 

I recalled that you yourself had asked Mr Blind whether he was 
the author of the anonymous pamphlet,” since both the tone and 
the content of his verbal account tallied entirely with the 
pamphlet.**' I stressed that, before encountering Mr Blind at 
Urquhart’s meeting of 9 May,’ I knew nothing of Vogt’s 
participation in the Italian imbroglio, save only for his letter to 
you. I reminded you that, on the evening you showed me that 
letter, it never remotely occurred to me to infer therefrom that 
Vogt had been bribed, or anything of the kind. Ail I found in the 
letter was the same old, all too familiar, superficially liberal 

4 Freiligrath’s letter to Liebknecht of 21 November 1859. - > Zur Warnung 

pot-house politics of his. If I laid any emphasis on all this, 
it was—d tout seigneur tout honneur*—so as not. to detract in 
any way from Mr Blind’s merit in uncovering Vogt’s high 
treason. 

Secondly, however, it never occurred to me to say that ‘Vogt’s 
letter did not contain a single syllable that might be used to 
substantiate a charge against Vogt’. All I said was that, having read 
the letter, it would not occur to me to draw such a conclusion. But 
the immediate subjective impression made upon me by the letter is 
very far removed from an objective judgment on the content of the 
letter, or even on conjectures which might be made about it. I 
never had either the occasion or the opportunity to subject the 
letter to the critical examination necessary for such an objective 
judgment. That Mr Blind put a different construction on, for 
instance, the letters Vogt addressed to you, him, etc., is and was 
known to you. E.g. in his article in The Free Press (27 May)” these 
letters are expressly mentioned as corpora delicti," even though no 
names are given. This is again the case in his statement in the 
Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung.’ 

From Mr Vogt I now come to Mr Beta, whose No. 43 I bought 
after getting your letter.“ Having perused the opus, I decided to do 
exactly what I have been doing for the past 10 years, namely 
ignore such stuff. But I have today heard from two very close 
friends (not in London) urging me to make a statement in the 
interests of the party. I shall first deliberate the pros and cons 
for twice 24 hours. If, after mature deliberation, I should 
decide to speak, my statement would contain essentially the 
following: 

1. If an attempt were made wrongly to attribute to me any 
influence over you, this could at most apply to the brief life-span 
of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, at which time you were writing 
what was truly splendid and indisputably your most popular 
poetry. 

2. A biographical sketch in a few sentences of Mr Betziege,' alias 
Hans Beta, starting from the time when he wrote for a 
blackmailing theatrical rag in Berlin, going on through his 
editorship of the How do you do? under Louis Drucker, vintner 
and clown (including my visit to the How do you dos lair 5) and his 

@ honour to whom honour is due - > [K. Blind,] ‘The Grand Duke Constantine to Be 
King of Hungary’, The Free Press, No. 5, 27 May 1859. - © incriminating evidence - 
4 K. Blind, ‘Erklarung’, Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 313, 9 November 1859. - ¢ [H.] 
B{eta,] ‘Ferdinand Freiligrath’, Die Gartenlaube, No. 43, 1859. - f Literally ‘praying 
goat’, a play on the name Bettzieh. 

subsequent activities in Leipzig, when he simultaneously libelled 
me in the Gartenlaube, i.e. reproduced the tripe from the How do 
you do? and appropriated my anti-Palmerston pamphlets,’ and 
ending up with his present occupation of factotum to Gottfried 
Kinkel. It might, perhaps, do some good if the German public 
were to be shown what a scoundrelly bunch of lumpenproletarians 
it is that is croaking loudest in the foul swamp of current German 
literature. 

3. Two letters from Heine to myself which will enable the public 
to decide between the authority of Heine and the authority of 
Beta. 

4. Finally, a couple of letters written to me by Johann Kinkel 
and Johanna Kinkel at the time of the N. Rh. Z. I would use these 
to unseat the melodramatic parson from the high horse upon 
which this Father Brey* (it is in that sense that your version of 
Goethe should be amended) is charging me in what is for him the 
typical arena of a Gartenlaube. 

I am telling you all this so that, as is fitting between friends, you 
will have been informed in advance should I decide to make a 
statement.°” 

As for Liebknecht, Kolb is clearly seeking to justify himself in 
Cotta’s eyes by using your letter to sacrifice Liebknecht as a 
scapegoat, for his own, not Liebknecht’s quid pro quo. Peccant reges, 
plectuntur Achivi still holds good. 

To obviate all misunderstanding I have, at the same time as this 
letter to you, sent Liebknecht a copy of the passages in it relating 
to the Vogt affair. 

Your | 
K. M.