Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels 
in Manchester 
London, 10 March 1853 

I 10 March 1853. 
Dear Engels! 

The £5 received. 

I nearly croaked this week. Namely an inflammation of the liver, or at least a very close shave. This is hereditary in my family. My old man died of it. Since the 4 years I have been in England the thing had not shown itself again and seemed to have quite disappeared. However, the crisis is now over and, best of all, sans médecin. Still somewhat weak, though. 

Yesterday I received the following “agreeable” missive from Basle: 

“Basle 7 March 1853 9 o’clock in the morning. 

Dear Marx! I have just learned that the whole consignment of the ‘Enthüllungen’, which consisted of 2,000 copies and has been lying for 6 weeks on the far side of the border in a village, was seized yesterday during its further transport. What will happen now I do not know; first of all, claims by the Baden government before the Federal Council, then probably my apprehension or at least committal for trial, etc. At all events a tremendous uproar! This briefly for your information; further communications shall, should I be prevented, be made by a third party. When you write to me, use the address on the envelope: ‘Mad. Brenner-Guéniard, magasin de modes, Basle’ and write simply ‘For Jacques’ on the sealed inner envelope intended for me. The manuscript on the coup d’état I shall deposit in a safe place. Adieu, hopefully more soon than I can yet know. Give me a safe address: yours and the Bambergers’ are well known, of course. Yours, 

Jacques.” 

Now qu’en pensez vous mon cher maître renard? Has the “Swiss” sold me to the Prussian government for ready cash? 6 weeks on the far side of the border in a village, the affected anxiety, not a word about the copies that remained in Switzerland, despite my insistence not a single copy sent here! 

Under such circumstances shouldn’t one lose the desire to write? Always working pour le roi de Prusse! 

Que faire? For the “Swiss” must not be allowed to slip through like that. 

Quant à Dana, he has honoured my bill. The “brave” Bamberger originally gave me £5 on it, then made me run to and fro to the City for 14 days, and only paid up this week, after my landlady had for weeks surrendered to “howling” (literally). Since then I have again sent 7 articles to the Tribune. Tomorrow I shall send another. I would work myself out of it now, if I did not have the damned dette consolidée on my back. Even this would have been paid off to a considerable extent, had the wretched Swiss not plunged me back into néant. 

To keep Dana warm, I now absolutely must write a longer article on haute politique. Hence the détestable question orientale, on which a miserable Yankee from here is trying to rival me in the Tribune. But this question is above all military and geographical, hence not in my département. You must therefore once again exécuter. What is to become of the Turkish empire is “Spanish” to me. I can give no general point of view. 

Only for a newspaper article – where, incidentally, it would be necessary, by means of military and geographical-historical drapery, to sidle past the real question as far as possible – the following points, proceeding directly from Montenegro, seem to me necessary: 

1.) Despite all chicanery and newspaper twaddle, the question orientale will never become the occasion for a European war. It will always be patched up diplomatically, until the general hullabaloo puts an end, here too, to the patching-up. 

2.) Encroachments of Russia in Turkey. Covetousness of Austria. Ambition of France. Interests of England. Commercial and military importance of this bone of contention. 

3.) In the event of a general hullabaloo, Turkey will compel England to take the revolutionary side, because here its collision with Russia is inevitable. 

4.) Necessary dissolution of the Mohammedan empire. D’une manière ou de l’autre it will fall into the hands of European civilisation. 

For the moment one should still dwell specifically on the Montenegro affair and the miserable role that England is now officially playing. The Sultan gave in only because France and England did not promise him their aid. In this question, under the mask of the entente cordiale, both countries have coquetted against each other with the Holy Alliance. Point out that the ruling oligarchy in England must also be overthrown for this very reason, because it has become incapable of playing its old role abroad, of maintaining the English nation at the head of the Continent. 
Tout ça est très pauvre, mais enfin, il me faut un ou deux articles sur cette question pour tuer mon concurrent. 
Yours, 
KM 

Your translation of my Sutherland article is first-rate. I myself seem to have a certain talent for writing English; if only I had the gift of the gab and a grammar and a better corrector than Mr Pieper. 

I am writing to the Continent again today. If I succeed in scraping together enough money – since at present nothing is to be got out of Schabelitz – so that my wife can at least wait quietly until a second bill on Dana, which I intend this time to push to £30, can be drawn and returned, I shall perhaps come to you for a few days in April, pour restituer mes forces and for once to chat undisturbed with you about the present state of affairs, which in my opinion must soon lead to an earthquake. 

The “Morning Post” maintains that in Lancashire the manufacturers are only employing their workers short time, that prosperity is coming to an end, etc. How do matters stand in this respect? 

Yours, 
KM 

Up to this moment — and it is 11:30 — Dronke has still not brought the N.Q.II. The fellow is probably still in bed. These chaps are true washcloths. Given their laziness, inability to resist and collapse under any pressure from without, all hope is lost. We absolutely must recruit our party anew. Cluss is good. Reinhard in Paris is industrious. Lassalle, despite the many “buts”, is tough and energetic. Pieper would not be unusable if he had less childish vanity and more esprit de suite. Imandt and Liebknecht are tenacious and each useful in his own way. But all that is no party. The ex-lieutenant Steffen, ex-witness at the Cologne trial, now a schoolmaster at an institution near London, seems to me a capable man. Lupus grows from day to day older and becomes more crotchety. Dronke is and remains an “agreeable idler”.