London, 10 August 1852 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Engels, 

First, I enclose the original text of Kossuth’s secret circutar.'** 

Next, the report I. on the guarantors’ sitting of 6 August, 2. on 
Goegg’s meeting of 7 August. 

4 businessman - > Apparently on the English translation of Marx’s article, “Che 
Chartists’. - ¢ So 

As to 1. Present: Kinkel, Willich, Reichenbach, Lowe of Calbe, 
Meyen, Schurz (not Techow this time), Schimmelpfennig, Imandt; 
I know of no others. Not forgetting Scharttner. 

Kinkel had had the indispensable third member (Techow) of the 
alliance * elected in America and Switzerland. There still remained 
the participation in the election of the 12-15 London guarantors. 
Here, as I told you, the election of Techow fell through and then 
he declared that he could not accept as he was leaving for 
Australia.” 

Kinkel proposed to proceed with a new election of the third 
man. Fell through again. 

Lowe of Calbe: First: ‘The German loan has miscarried because 
the political circumstances (May 1852 '**) in view of which it was 
undertaken are no longer present, and the presupposed amount 
of 20,000 dollars has not been raised.’ Second: “The monies to be 
returned to the American committees.’ 

The first part of this motion was carried, the second rejected. 

Imandt: ‘If the majority of the remaining guarantors share my 
view, the money to hand should be used to publish a German 
newspaper in London.’ ‘Reichenbach will remain trustee of the 
money. ‘A committee is to be elected consisting of Reichenbach, 
Léwe and Schimmelpfennig, and Kinkel and Willich will hand 
over to it the lists of the guarantors in America and Switzerland; 
the previous committee has nothing more to do with the matter; 
the new committee will advise the guarantors abroad of the 
resolutions taken and will obtain their opinion.’ 

Reichenbach supported Imandt’s motions, all were carried. 
Kinkel and Willich protested on the grounds that the disposal of 
the money did not rest solely with the body of guarantors. Only 
the donors of the money, or respectively the finance committees 
set up in America, could exercise the right of disposal. 

Sic transit gloria“ Willich is more determined than ever to go to 
America, provided he can raise the fare. 

As to 2. Meeting called by Finance Minister. Goegg, back from 
America without finances. 

Present: In the chair: ‘Damm’ himself (not yet slipped off to 
Australia). Goegg. Ronge. Dr Strauss. Sigel, the other one.’ Franck 
(from Vienna). Oswald. Dralle. (These all ‘agitators’.°) Kinkel. 
Schurz. Meyen. Willich. Imandt. Schily. Becker. One of Scharttner’s 

2 A paraphrase of the expression ‘in eurem Bunde der dritte’ from Schiller’s poem 
‘Der Burgschaft’. - > America in the original. See this volume, p. 150. - © Thus 
passes the glory. - 4 Albert Sigel - © members of the Agitation Club 

waiters. The tipsy Lumpenproletarian Herweg from Neuss. Candi- 
date Hentze from Kénigsberg. Garthe. A stripling (unknown) from 
Vienna. 

Goegg opened the sitting, described his activity in America, 
owing to which birth was given to a revolutionary league,'” an act 
as a result of which the American Republic was supposed to be 
‘tumbled’ and hence birth to be given to a German-Baden 
republic—the victory of the American Democrats over the Whigs 
to be ensured, etc. The modest young man further asserted (an 
opinion attested by the newly arrived candidate of philosophy 
Hentze) that Germans in all provinces stood with their eyes fixed 
on London so that, at the crucial moment when those present at 
the meeting fell into each other’s arms, they could let out a 
thunderous hurrah that would resound across the ocean a 
thousand times o’er. Hence he demanded that the meeting 
constitute itself a branch of the Revolutionary League and no 
longer leave their poor compatriots to languish in that attitude of 
expectancy. : 

Imandt: Thanked Goegg for his information on American 
conditions. Suggested moreover that the meeting should disperse, 
since only a general and publicly convened meeting of refugees 
could take a decision. 

Damm ruled him out of order. 

Kinkel: (Already during Goegg’s eloquent speech, this sensitive 
poet-martyr had, by rolling his eyes, signified his irrevocable 
determination to spread out his arms in reconciliation). He, too, 
was aware that Germany was looking to them. He was in a position 
to clasp the conciliatory hand. As a sacrifice to the cause, he would 
forget the grave injustice he had suffered. He, too, was aware that 
not only the liberation of Germany, but also the revolutionising of 
America, lay in their hands. None so great, said he, in an allusion 
to Ruge’s ‘agent of the Prince of Prussia’,* as he who mastered 
himself. However he, for his part, demanded that the Revolution- 
ary League should also now guarantee his loan. Even though he 
and the ‘honourable’ Willich might not see eye to eye politically, 
nevertheless they would, he believed, have achieved great things 
together. 

Imandt: Respected the Christian humility of Kinkel who had 
forgotten that Ruge had called him an agent of the Prince of 
Prussia, who had, for sheer love of the revolution, had repressed 
the indignation in his burning breast which, 2 months earlier 

4 See this volume, pp. 150-51. 

(May), had prompted, in the presence of the guarantors, the 
solemn declaration: ‘as a good republican, he could only regard as 
injurious to his honour the suggestion that he should go with 
Ruge, his wicked detractor, and, rather than reconcile himself with 
the wicked Ruge, would retire from all political activity’. It was out 
of Christian humility that Kinkel had drained the bitter cup which 
Fickler had prepared for him with his horribly insulting letters (in 
one of those letters Fickler had described him as ‘a turkey 
strutting on a dung-heap’); he had become, as indeed Goegg’s 
friends maintained he had always been, simple of heart if he could 
bring himself to fall into the arms of his American rivals. The 
‘union’ between Messrs Kinkel and Goegg was a fine thing, for 
although it really had no other purpose than that the former with 
the help of the jatter should strive to get the upper hand in the 
administration of the loan funds, and that the latter with the help 
of the former should seek to worm his way into that administra- 
tion, yet a peace agreement between two men of such stature 
might nevertheless ensure that the political parties throughout the 
world similarly became reconciled, that the constitutionalist held 
out his hand to the republican and the socialist to the republican, 
that henceforward the proletarians would no longer be exploited 
by the bourgeois and, in short, that everyone would embrace every 
one else and shout hip-hip-hurray. For the fact of Kinkel’s having 
said in America that he regarded the proletarians as cannon 
fodder (as once in Bonn and Cologne he had adulated Cavaignac) 
and this, despite his alliance with the ‘honourable’ Willich, did not 
affect the issue. There was at most one trifling matter outstanding: 
like all people who, instead of studying the difference between the 
various parties and championing their interests, indulged in 
scatter-brained folly about uniting opposing elements, Kinkel 
could be reproached with a total lack of principle, etc. He would 
further draw Kinkel’s attention to the fact that he could at most 
conclude agreements on his behalf, but not on behalf of the body 
of guarantors. Finally, Imandt moved that the Revolutionary 
League in America be left to its own devices and that all should go 
home. Whereupon Imandt went. 

Incidents: Damm constantly interrupted Imandt and wanted to 
tule him out of order. As a Rhinelander, the tipsy Herweg felt 
obliged, so long as Imandt was present, to manifest approbation 
and, while Imandt was speaking of ‘great men’, he ‘lorgnetted’ the 
company with his pipe. During the passage about ‘the 
proletarians’, the painter, Franck, rose in indignation and said: ‘I 
can’t stand it any more. I grunt.’ Imandt replied that this was 

something he had in common with other animals, whereupon 
Franck decamped. Kinkel denied the ‘cannon fodder’. Imandt told 
the whole story about Schnauffer and the Wecker, whereat Kinkel 
fell silent. At the word ‘Cavaignac’, he again broke in: ‘Citizen 
Imandt, when did the Bonner Zeitung appear?’ Imandt: It was all 
the same to him whether it had been before or after the June 
insurrection. He had read about the thing himself. 

Conclusion: The sitting went on for 2 more hours. Goegg 
pleaded that they should join the Revolutionary League, at least 
temporarily. The afore-mentioned stripling from Vienna declared 
anyone who delayed in joining by so much as an hour to be a 
‘traitor to his country’. Nevertheless, after the majority had 
rejected every, I repeat, every motion, the company went home 
without having founded a branch of the American-European- 
Australian Revolutionary League. 

Your 
K. M.