28 Dean Street, Soho, London

Dear Engels,

I have received the £3 and the returned manuscript.

You must excuse me for not having written for so long. The pressure from without explains it to you.

Willich was shipped off to America about a fortnight ago as Kinkel’s agent.

Frau v. Bruiningk was buried a few days ago.

Through clumsy manoeuvres by the parliamentarians Reichenbach and Löwe, and negligence on Imandt’s part, the £1,000 have fallen back into Herr Kinkel’s hands, and in such a way that the money is deposited in his name at the Bank of England and Reichenbach is to hand over the deposit certificate to him in May unless the guarantors decide otherwise. Decisions which now, of course, are worthless.

Herr Bangya has been in Paris for 3 weeks. Liebknecht has got a very good position with the Jew Oppenheim. The rest of the populace, excepto Imandt, still floating.

The brochure at Schabelitz’s was only finished on 11 January. About 6 sheets. He seems, however, not to want to send anything to London until he has successfully dispatched the thing to all points in Germany and received advice of delivery.

The Cologne gentlemen, especially Daniels, persist in their dignified silence. A reply to the fact that for 4–5 weeks one set aside all business for their affair.

From the enclosed cutting from the *Arbeiterrepublik* (editor Weitling) you will see the venom of this tailor king and dictator of the colony “Communia” on the Cologne Communist Trial and the Marx & Co. party.

Yesterday I ventured for the first time to write an article in English myself for Dana. Pieper played the corrector, and once I’ve procured a proper grammar and just boldly start writing, it’ll go passably.

Two points in passing:  
Firstly: Blind keeps pestering me about Herzen’s book.  
Secondly: in your next letter, do not forget to send the circular and Reichenbach’s statement of account. Dronke needed them for opening a new correspondence.

Given the state of the winter harvest, I am convinced that the crisis will now become due. As long as the staple article, food, remained tolerably abundant and cheap, together with Australia, etc., the thing could still be protracted. Now a stop will be put to that. Incidentally, does it not sound strange when, e.g., the *Economist* writes apologetically about the Bank of England’s recent discount regulation, that its purpose was “to prevent the exportation of capital”. We know full well what that means. But might one not disturb the free-trader conscience by asking: Do you likewise want to prevent the “exportation of capital” in the form of cottons, yarns, etc.? Why then in the form of gold? Is the end of the free-trade economy that it returns to pure mercantilism and regards the efflux and influx of gold as the *nervus rerum*?

In the City there is a general belief in war since Bonaparte’s last speech. I have also received a letter from old Ebner in Frankfurt, in which he speaks of the fright which Bonaparte’s wedding speech produced upon the silken puppets in Germany, especially the diplomats in Frankfurt on Main. What blockheads our patriotic compatriots are, I saw yesterday, among other things, from the *Frankfurter Journal*, where it is written, d.d. Heidelberg: People in high places now surely already regret the persecution of the great Gervinus, since Bonaparte has thrown himself into the arms of “democracy” and a war of propaganda is at the door. I fear Crapulinsky will be received by the German peasants and petty burghers as “saviour and friend”. This burlesque figure seems called upon to completely invert and ridicule all traditional positions and parties.

What influence does a poor autumn exert on a war that is just beginning? Write to me also about how things stand in the manufacturing department, especially in cotton.

Jones’s paper is again *en ascendant*.

I consider Cobden’s pamphlet, as well as the peace conference in Manchester, to be pure rubbish at the present moment. There you have it, says Palmerston’s journal, the *Morning Post*, these bourgeois parvenus are totally incapable of governing a country. Only the aristocracy can do that. The *Morning Herald* publishes a letter, addressed to itself, and as it claims, written under the dictatorship of Bonaparte himself, in which the latter says he would only come to England if the queen needed 200,000 of his champions of order against the dangerously growing democracy. This democracy, says the *Herald*, is you, Mr. Cobden, you et Co.

Regarding the *Times*, I have received the following quite reliable details, which may perhaps interest you:

Mr. Walter, M.P. for Nottingham, is still its constitutional king, still the principal shareholder of the paper. Mr. Mowbray Morris is the Lord of the Exchequer of the *Times*, its financial and political manager—a very adventurous and “reckless” fellow. Mr. Delane Junior (friend of D’Israeli) is secretary for the Home Office. His father is the editor of the *Morning Chronicle*. Mr. Dosent is the secretary of foreign affairs. Moreover, the *Times* has a sort of privy council. The most important among them, Mr. Lowe, M.P. for Kidderminster, an albino with red eyes and white hair, is said to have great talent and special knowledge of financial affairs. Alongside him, Mr. Henry Reeve, who holds a minor post in the statistical department of the Board of Trade, an admirer of the Orleans statesmen. Mr. Lampon writes the money article, otherwise without influence on the direction of the whole.

According to a letter from Zerffi, it is generally believed in Paris that Bonaparte is cheating with the Sultan in the Montenegrin affair against Austria and Russia.

*Vale faveque*

K. Marx