London, 18 January [1861] 
Dear Frederick, 

You must excuse my failure to acknowledge receipt of the £3 
ere now. On Monday I had a relapse and, since there was no sign 
of improvement on Tuesday, I had to have recourse to Allen 
again, so that I am at present UNDER MEDICAL TREATMENT. Writing 
means that I have to stoop, which hurts, and so I kept putting it 
off. As you see, I am as tormented as Job, though not as 
god-fearing. 

a [L. Walesrode,] Eine politische Todtenschau, Kiel, 1859. 

Siebel—whose time appears to be very valuable since there 
hasn’t been a single line from him—has sent me 2 Cologne 
Anzeigers, containing two short reviews favourable to my book.’ The 
bookselier’s advertisement was in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung 
supplement of 1 January. 

I'd be glad if you would let me have for The Times a short 
critique in English of the Prussian amnesty ”*’°—because of Allen’s 
orders that I should refrain altogether from writing for at least 
another week. The following are the main points to be emphasised: 

1. That the amnesty is the lousiest to have been proclaimed in 
any country (not excluding Austria) since 1849; (mesquin,° typically 
Prussian); 

2. That the state of the ‘liberal’ Prussian press may be judged by 
the plaudits it bestows upon this piece of ordure; 

3. That, whenever a new government comes to power in Prussia, 
an amnesty is proclaimed in respect of certain minor mis- 
demeanours, resistance to gendarmes, insults to officials, etc., and 
that the present amnesty is in fact no more than this. : 

4. In effect all refugees—i.e. all who took part in the revolution 
of 1848/49—are excluded from the amnesty. The prospect held 
out to those refugees ‘liable to be sentenced by Our civil courts and 
who are permitted ‘to return without let or hindrance’ (as though 
everyone had not always been ‘legally’ entitled to return), is that 
the Ministry of Justice will ‘ex officio’ lodge ‘pleas for clemency’ 
on their behalf. This, in effect, guarantees nothing. This 
absurd formula was chosen presumably because Prussia is a 
‘state under the rule of law’ whose constitution precludes the king 
from suppressing any judicial inquiry. A pretty mockery in a state 
where, on the admission of the Prussian Gerichiszeitung (in Berlin), 
there has been no justice for the past ten years. Furthermore, 
sentences in absentia could be ar once pronounced and quashed. 
This ‘legal’ coquetry is indeed deserving of recognition when 
Stieber, Greif, and Goldheim continue to be left at large—ditto 
Simons, Manteuffel, etc. 

5. Beastliest of all is § 4 of the amnesty, whereby ‘all those liable 
to be sentenced by military tribunals in the near future’ must first 
‘appeal’ for William’s ‘clemency’, whereupon he ‘will reserve his 
final decision until such time as he has received a report from Our 
Military Department of Justice’. 

4 Herr Vogt-> See this volume, pp. 249 and 253. - © mean 

148. Marx to Engels. 22 January 186] 249 

Consider in this connection that, given the Prussian Land- 
wehr’s*' constitution, it is most exceptional for a Prussian refugee 
to be outside the jurisdiction of a ‘military tribunal’; that the ‘plea 
for clemency’ is categorically prescribed, and nothing positive is 
promised in return for this humiliating procedure; finally that, 
more than any refugee, William himself is in need of an ‘amnesty’ 
since, from a strictly legal standpoint, he had no business to 
intervene in Baden,”” etc. 

The Times will undoubtedly accept a critique of this kind with 
the utmost pleasure. I would send it simultaneously to other 
papers as well, just signing it, of course, ‘A Prussian rerucrr’. At the 
same time, I would write a personal letter to the Editor.’ 

It is the only way we can give these Prussian dogs, and the 
corporal” in charge of them, their deserts. 

Your 
K. M.