(Manchester, about 27 October 1851] 

Dear Marx, 

If I didn’t at once reply to your letter of the 19th inst., this was 
because I was expecting Weerth here within a few days and 
wanted to settle matters with regard to Haupt; and also because I 
wanted to be done with the Proudhon screed.° That will be today 

4 i.e. the members of the Frankfurt National Assembly - > F. Engels, ‘Critical Review 
of Proudhon’s Book Idée générale de la Révolution au XIX siécle’. 

and tomorrow evening, and Weerth was here on Saturday and 
Sunday; he will be remaining in Bradford for some time yet, and 
hence cannot take the letter over himself and refuses to do so 
even if he could, present conditions in Germany being so brilliant 
that one is liable to summary arrest on the slightest provocation, 
and he has no desire to be in any way mixed up in this League 
matter. This cannot au fond? be held against him. He will, 
however, certainly see for me that a letter reaches Haupt, and only 
asks to be kept out of the thing completely. He told me, moreover, 
that he had come across Haupt on several occasions of late, but 
that, each time he had gone up to him, the man had, with a 
considerable show of embarrassment, suddenly avoided him and 
made off. It could be that, while in jug, Haupt was to some extent 
talked round by his family, etc., etc., and made certain admissions 
which now weigh heavily upon him. For the rest, Weerth 1s also of 
the opinion that those other stories emanating from Willich- 
Stechan are downright calumnies, since Haupt could have had no 
reason to sell himself. 

I shall now write to Haupt anonymously,’ since he knows my 
hand, and leave the conveyance of the letter to Weerth. I shall call 
upon him to declare himself openly and shall suggest that the 
Berthold business may well have been the cause of all the 
rumours. However, I shall omit the further suggestion that Willich 
might have gone shares with Berthold, because 1) Haupt will take 
care not to put his name to such insinuations, 2) the story is too 
improbable, Mr Berthold not being the man to go shares with 
distant acquaintances, particularly with Willich whom au fond‘ he 
detests, and 3) within the week the others would write to all the 
newspapers, describing this as a fresh calumny put about by Mr | 
Marx, and appealing to philistine sentiment on behalf of that _ 
calumniated worthy Willich. The fellow’s already enough of a 
rogue without our trying to make him into a greater one, or 
spreading les about him which he can refute. 

I must say that the Fischer letter is the stupidest thing I have 
seen in a long while. But I was expecting something of the kind 
and believe, moreover, that it will get no further than promises of 
money. The democratic jackasses can hardly be asked to send us 
money when their own people are coming in person to beg it from 
them, and the most they can be persuaded to do is, as Fischer 
himself says, to accord us some say in the disposal of the money, if 

500 

@ the impending wial of the Communist League members - > really - © at bottom 

we are prepared to consent to sit in conclave with such rabble and 
as a minority at that. The borrowing scheme 4 la Mazzini, with an 
imperial guarantee* (the German Empire guarantees the Repub- 
lic!), isn’t bad at all, and it did at least require the combined efforts 
of all the most exemplary mendicants to produce it. Now that this 
has been invented, no other course remains open to our party 
than to withdraw completely from the democratic money market. 
‘THIS IMPUDENCE BEATS US HOLLOW. Such money as we have received from 
the democrats for political purposes has in any case come our way 
purely per abusum” and, now that the great men have themselves 
appeared on the market as a Joint stock company, this illusion entirely 
ceases to be. All we should incur by our requests would be refus‘ and 
humiliation unless, of course, Weydemeyer should succeed in 
achieving something in New York, and even then it would only be 
among the workers. 

Weerth will be writing to you shortly. He is very undecided 
about what he should do. He has had some splendid offers, but 
none of them really suit him. 

Like the Apostle Paul, Mr Kossuth is all things to all men.* In 
Marseilles he shouts Vive la République, in Southampton Gop save 
THE Queen. What remarkable and hyper-constitutional moderation 
the fellow now parades! But Mr Pettie and the Harney clique are 
happy enough that he should have no intention whatever of 
attending their banquet. Even Mr Mazzini would be given a very 
cool reception—at least in public. Yet another one about whom we 
weren’t mistaken. Should there be no secousses* next year, how 
long before Mr Kossuth, too, stoops to common, tub-thumping 
demagogy 4a la Mazzini? 

Proudhon tomorrow or the day after. If possible, I shall send 
Fischer the Revue but only of the last issue have I more than one 
copy. Can you still get hold of Nos. 1-4 for me? 

Your 
F. E.