Manchester, 9 July 1851 

Dear Dronke, 

You have heard nothing from us for some considerable 
time—firstly because, since Galeer’s death, we haven’t had any 
address, and then because, after you had given us Schuster’s 
address, news reached us that you yourself would soon be coming 
to England. But, since Lupus has now been in London for almost 
a month and we have heard nothing from you, we can only 
suppose that you will be remaining where you are for the time 
being. 

You will have been informed of the happenings in London 
Jast autumn.**! What you did not hear from this quarter you will 
have seen in the documents published since then. So to put you au 
fait 1 need only tell you about a few of the things that have hap- 
pened in the meantime. 

As I have been stuck here in Manchester since Nov. °50 and as 
Marx speaks little English, our connection with Harney and the 
Chartists was making little or no headway. This was exploited by 
Schapper, Willich, L. Blanc, Barthélemy, etc.,—in short, the whole 
Franco-German caboodle, displeased on the one hand with us and 
on the other with the Ledru-Mazzini Committee “’—to get Harney 
involved in a banquet planned for 24 February; in this they 
succeeded. During that banquet the following curious things 
happened: 

1. Two of our people who were present, one of them 
Schramm,* were thrown out by the German refugee rabble—the 
thing took a serious turn and legal proceedings might have ensued 
had we not been able to settle it well enough to satisfy the injured 
parties; on the other hand it led—momentarily—to somewhat 
strained relations with Harney, who showed weakness on that 
occasion. Jones, however, a fellow quite unlike Harney, is wholly 
on our side and is at present expounding the Manifesto” to the 
English. 

a Conrad Schramm and Wilhelm Pieper - » K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the 
Communist Party. 

2. Mr Willich, for want of an address from Germany, read out 
one from Switzerland, beneath which was your signature among 
others. By what deception or forgery your name found its way 
onto such a document we here cannot of course know; at all 
events, you must duly investigate the matter, and let us have the 
necessary information. The address, by the way, is printed in the 
compte rendu* of the banquet with your name under it, and you 
can imagine the glee occasion by the name of someone from the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung appearing at its foot. 

3. The business of Blanqui’s toast.*? As a professed Blanquist, 
Barthélemy transmitted a request to Blanqui for a toast and 
Blanqui obliged with a splendid attack on the entire prov. 
government, Blanc and Co. included. Thunderstruck, Barthélemy 
laid it before the Committee, who resolved to suppress it. Blanqui, 
however, knew his men, the toast was published in the Paris 
papers” to coincide with the banquet and quite spoiled the 
dramatic effect. That pious little swindler, L. Blanc, now asserted 
in The Times, as did the Committee— Willich, Schapper, L. Blanc, 
Barthélemy, Vidil, etc..—in the Patrie, that they knew nothing 
whatever about the toast.. The Patrie, however, added the 
comment that, in reply to their inquiries, Blanqui’s brother-in-law, 
Antoine, had told them he had sent the toast to Mr Barthélemy 
and was in possession of an acknowledgment from the latter—one 
of the co-signatories of the statement. Barthélemy thereupon 
declared that this was so, that he accepted full responsibility, had 
lied, had received the toast but, in the interests of concord, had 
suppressed it.“ Unfortunately, however, the ex-capitaine de dragons 
Vidil simultaneously declared that he wished to confess every- 
thing: the toast had been submitted by Barthélemy to the 
Committee and suppressed by a resolution of the latter.“ Can one 
imagine a more horrid fiasco for the whole band? We translated 
the toast into German‘ and had 30,000 copies distributed in 
Germany and England. 

During the November mobilisation **° Willich, transported to the 
height of ecstasy by bogus letters, wanted to revolutionise the 

a account - > ‘Toste envoyé par le citoyen L. A. Blanqui 4 la commission prés les 
réfugiés de Londres, pour le banquet anniversaire du 24 février’, La Patrie, No. 58, 27 
February 1851. - © L. Blanc, ‘To the Editor of The Times’, The Times, No. 20741, 5 
March 1851; [‘La déclaration de la commission du Banquet des Egaux du 1 mars 
1851’, La Patrie, No. 66, '7 March 1851. - 4 E. Barthélemy, ‘Au rédacteur en chef du 
journal La Patrie’, La Patrie, No. 71, 12 March 1851. - € J. Vidil, (‘Letter to the editors 
of La Patrie,) La Patrie, No. 69, 10 March 1851. -f K. Marx and F. Engels, 
‘Introduction to the Leaftet of L. A. Blanqui’s Toast Sent to the Refugee Committee’. 

world with the Prussian Landwehr.*> We have in our hands some 
exceedingly comical documents and revolutionary plans relating to 
this. They will be put to use in due course. First and foremost, all 
‘quill-pushing elements’ were to be extirpated, root and branch, 
and the dictatorship of the mobilised Eifel peasants proclaimed. 
Malheureusement il n’en fut rien? 

Since then the associated great men, amidst mutual assurances 
of power and immortality, have been fruitlessly attempting to gain 
a footing somewhere. All in vain. And they have the gratification 
of knowing that, of all the house searches and arrests that have 
taken place in Germany, not one has been due to connections with 
themselves. 

We, on the other hand, have the satisfaction of being rid of the 
entire loud-mouthed, muddle-headed, impotent émigré rabble in 
London, and of being at long last able to work again undisturbed. 
The innumerable private iniquities of that gang need not concern 
us. We have always been superior to the riff-raff and, in any 
serious movement, have dominated them; but we have, mean- 
while, learnt an enormous amount from our experiences since 
1848, and have made good use of the lull since 1850 to resume 
our swotting. If anything should blow up again, the advantage we 
shall have over them will this time be of quite a different order, 
and in fields, furthermore, of which they have small inkling. Apart 
from all that, we have the enormous advantage that, unlike us, 
they are place-seekers to a man. It is beyond comprehension that 
there should still be jackasses whose supreme ambition, after the 
experiences they have been through, is to join some government 
or other, le lendemain méme de la premiere insurrection victorieuse— 
as they call revolution—only to be spurned or thrown out in 
disgrace 4 weeks later, as were Blanc and Flocon in 1848! And a 
Schapper-Gebert-Meyen-Haude-Willich government to boot! Alas, 
the poor devils will never achieve this satisfaction; they will, alas, 
revert to being mere appendages and, as such, may continue to 
sow confusion in the small towns and among the peasantry. 

What are you actually doing in Geneva? They say you are a 
husband and a father, and that you are also on very friendly terms 
with Moses*—with an eye to Mrs Moses.* Others have it that all 
this is sheer calumny but—at a distance of 10 degrees of 
latitude—that would be difficult to judge. Freiligrath, too, is in 
London and is bringing out a new volume of poetry. Weerth is in 

a See this volume, p. 320. - > Unfortunately, nothing came of it. - © on the very 
morrow of the first victorious insurrection - ¢ Hess - € Sibylle Hess 

Hamburg and, like myself, is writing business letters pending the 
next set-to. He brought nothing back from his travels in Spain, 
not even the clap. He is, by the way, coming to London this 
month. Red Wolff* has gone through various phases of being 
an Irishman, a worthy bourgeois, a madman and other interesting 
states, and has completely abandoned Schnaps in favour of 
HALF-AND-HALF. Pére Marx goes daily to the library and is adding 
amazingly to his knowledge—but also to his family. Finally, as to 
myself, I drink rum and water, swot and spend my time ’twixt Twist 
and tedium. So much for the Personal Column. 

Since we over here have been compelled by the arrests in Germany 
to provide in many respects for the re-establishment of contacts, and 
to resume responsibility for much of the work we had delegated, it is 
essential that you write and tell us as soon as possible how things 
are in Switzerland. Reply at once, therefore, and should you want 
further elucidation, let us know upon what points. Write to 
me—care or Messrs Ermen & Engels, Manchester—via Calais. 

Your 
F. Engels