ENGELS TO MARX” 

(St. Hélier,} Jersey, 29 October 1857 
3 Edward Place 

Dear Marx, 

I shall be returning to Manchester a week from today,” but 
don’t yet know what route I shall take. Your letter induced me to 
question Heckscher again (I had, of course, already consulted him 
concerning my return) about the possibility of a fatal relapse. 
From his reply I can only conclude that he believes a relapse 
might be fatal only if the lungs were affected, and is willing to 
guarantee that this will not be so in my case. At all events, he 
doesn’t think Jersey is of much benefit to me any more; either the 
thing’s over, or I must go much further south, and should anyhow 
return to Manchester, if only as an experiment, since ] can always 
go away again. Now I’m simply waiting for some money and then 
T'll be off. By that time the nistory or cannon will be finished and 
Id rather do the other things—with possibly a few small 
exceptions—in Manchester where my books are. I should like to 
have the D list soon, otherwise Mr Dana will steal a march on us. 
What else does the noble fellow have to say, or haven’t you heard 
from him? 

So drastically has the iron acted on my blood that my pulse has 
begun racing madly and the blood is always rising to my head; it’s 

a A reference to the articles ‘Armada’ and ‘Ayacucho’ by Marx and Engels (see this 
volume, p. 173). 

as though I'd been drinking—I feel quite fuddled and my 
excitation is such that I can’t sleep at night. So for the time being 
I’ve had to stop taking it again. When I go back onto it in 
Manchester I shall have to reduce the dose considerably. 

The advancing season is having a most debilitating effect on 
Schramm. Needless to say, he can only go out very little now and 
seldom comes into the town and only at the cost of considerable 
effort. The old philistine* sent to him by his brother” is a very 
bawdy fellow, who knows all the Berlin gossip, but in other ways 
stupid and boring. However, he’ll be able to pester Konrad’s 
worthy brother on Konrad’s behalf, and this he has promised me 
to do. Schramm has had a door made in the wall between his 
bedroom and living-room which enables him to heat the former a 
bit and avoid going out into the hall in winter. This has put an 
end to the house-hunting. He'll hardly outlast the spring, poor 
devil. 

Harney grows more stupid every day. Considering the nature of 
the feudal arrangements here,”*’ he should be able to make 4 DEAL 
OF POLITICAL CAPITAL Out of them, but he doesn’t even begin to 
understand them and, moreover, ruins all the best points made by 
the little lawyer who supplies him with material and even complete 
articles. There is, by the way, much that is funny about this 
dead-and-alive feudal set-up, and the whole business is preposter- 
ous to a degree. A modern lawyer‘ for Seigneur and St. Hélier 
shopkeepers for vassals—the masquerade is altogether grotesque. 
Just now the fellows are holding feudal courts of justice; the 
prévot? du Seigneur is a carver and ciper who doesn’t know a word 
of French and, although he’s the second personage here, hasn’t an 
inkling of what’s going on. The Seigneur threatens to confiscate 
the houses of his unruly vassals, who make up some 60-70 per 
cent of the total number, while the vassals—prarers and tallow-- 
CHANDLERS—threaten to meet force with force. Voila the present 
state of affairs. 

If you write to me on Monday, but IN TIME FoR THE MAIL, your letter 
will still find me here; whether I shall still be here on Thursday, I 
am not quite sure. 

Warmest regards to your wife and children. 

Your 
F. E. 

a Hermann Buck - » Rudolf Schramm - <¢ Francois Godfrey - 4 the highest court 
and police officer in medieval France - ¢ such is 

The Sepoys must have defended the Enceinte of Delhi very 
badly ***; the real joke was the house-to-house fighting when, 
presumably, the native TRoops were sent in first. So the actual 
siege—what came afterwards could hardly be described as 
such—lasted from the 5th to the 14th, long enough for breaches 
to be made in the unprotected wall by heavy naval guns firing at a 
range of 300-400 yards. These were already in position by the 5th 
or 6th. The cannon on the walls do not appear to have been 
effectively manned, otherwise the English wouldn’t have been able 
to make so swift an approach. 

The American crash is superb and not yet over by a long chalk. 
We still have to see the collapse of the better part of the import 
houses; so far only one here and there would appear to have 
crashed. The repercussion in England would seem to have begun 
with the Liverpool Borough Bank. Tant mieux. That means that, 
for the next 3 or 4 years, commerce will again be in a bad way. 
Nous avons maintenant de la chance.” 

I haven’t got a stamp in the house and it is now midnight.