[London,] 30 October 1861 

Dear Engels, 

Circumstances have finally crearep to the extent that I have at 
least got firm ground under my feet again and am no longer in a 
state of complete suspense. As you know, shortly after my return 
from Manchester and as soon as I thought the moment 
opportune, I again started writing for the Tribune at weekly 
intervals. Last week included, I had sent them 6 articles.*°? Then, 
in the last mail, the first 2 articles* actually came back in print, the 
first of them (over 3 columns on English opinions on the Unitep 
STATES) 1N @ PROMINENT PLACE and particularly rererrep ro on the front 
page of the paper. To this extent, then, the matter is in order and 
hence I am assured of £2 per week. , 

Secondly: I had, as you know, already written to the Vienna 
Presse from Manchester, asking for ‘information’.**° About 3 weeks 
ago I got an answer which was politically entirely satisfactory to 
me. (In the meantime, the paper has modified its attitude to 
Schmerling.) At the same time, Friedlander (on behalf of Zang, 
the proprietor) asked for 2 sample articles. These” I sent off and 
yesterday morning I got an answer to the effect 1. that the articles 
had appeared with due prominence on the front page,**” 2. that I 
was engaged on a regular basis from November, £1 per article, 
10sh. per news-letter. 

As regards the Tribune, I must first of all find some way of 
drawing bills, for it can hardly be arranged through Freiligrath in 
future. 

For the rest, this twofold engagement holds out an assured 
prospect of putting an end to the harried existence led by my 
family over the past year, and also of finally completing my 
book. Thanks to you, I was able to placate the more pressing of 
the blackguards at the beginning of September, but even so, the 

a K. Marx, ‘The American Question in England’ and ‘The British Cotton Trade’, 
New-York Daily Tribune, Nos. 6403 and 6405, 11 and 14 October 1861.- 
b K. Marx, ‘The North American Civil War’ and ‘The Civil War in the United 
States’, Die Presse, Nos. 293 and 306, 25 October and 7 November 1861. 

harassment was still quite intolerable, and in October it again 
reached a crescendo. I am writing today to my old lady* to find 
out whether anything can be squeezed out of her. I shall likewise 
see if I can raise something from a Loan sociery. My chief concern, 
of course, is to put my affairs into some sort of order, pending the 
availability of amounts worTtH prawinc from New York and Vienna, 
and above all to have leisure in which to work during the interval 
that must necessarily elapse. In the ran rime, we have pawned 
everything that was not actually nailed down and, what is even 
worse, my wife is seriously unwell. When it was simply a case of 
enduring the pressure of. day-to-day adversities, she did this 
bravely, but she has been cast down by the complete absence of 
prospects. In the meantime, the favourable news from Vienna and 
New York has already evoked a favourable reaction. 

Borkheim had strangely misled both himself and me over 
Kolatschek’s Stimmen der Zeit. True, No. 39 carried a contribution 
running to a printer’s sheet headlined ‘K. Vogt und K. Marx’, but 
it was written by the student Abt, the ‘lowest of the low’, whom 
you will remember from Geneva. Having taken due note of the 
actual content of my pamphlet? in the first 2 pages, he devotes the 
remaining 14 to railing in the most rabid and villainous fashion 
against me and, notably, Schily and Imandt, on account of the 
‘Bristlers’.°** He concludes by saying that, if I don’t recant, he will 
attack me ‘at the only vulnerable spot he knows’ and compromise 
me in a manner ‘that I shall regret’. Needless to say, I didn’t take 
the slightest notice of the scoundrel. But something véry odd must 
have happened to put Mr Kolatschek at Abt’s mercy, for, as Abt 
says, he had had the scrawl as far back as January and had 
refused to print it until September. 

Salut. ; 

Your 

K. M. 

Don’t forget to send’ me as detailed a report as possible on the 
status quo in Manchester.