Manchester, 18 July 1859 
Dear Moor, 

I shall send you tomorrow or the day after the £5 still required 
to pay off the Volk’s arrears. It was too late for me to do it today, 
and besides I have the company of the ‘littke man’, scilicet* 
Dronke, who sidled up to me at the Exchange; the little chap’s 
business seems to be doing passably well. Apart from current 
day-to-day gossip, on which he holds forth like a pothouse 
politician, he seems reluctant to talk about politicis, particularly of 
the past, and this I encourage, for after all I treat him as an 
extraneus.” His knowledge, however, has not increased, and the 
profundity of his politics may be summed up in his remark that 
the Italians ‘have got to hit out now, or they’re not worth a thing’. 

But to revert from the little man to the Volk; we must at once 
discuss what is to be done. If the £7 you took with you has 
vanished so quickly, and the louts’ £3 15/- as well, the £3 I have in 
reserve will doubtless soon be gone too. Que faire?‘ I’ve heard 
nothing about Strohn’s return. There’s not much more to be done 
with Borchardt. As soon as Lupus returns—but heaven knows 
where he is—I shall at all events get him to carry out a 
reconnaissance. Before that I wouldn’t care to approach him 
personally. Nor do I run across him any more, though I’ve several 
times kept half an eye open for him in Oxford Road. 

At any rate you must let me know sometime exactly how matters 
stand financially under the new administration, so that I can have 
an answer ready to eventual queries. How many copies are now 
being sold? Have you cut down the newsboys, etc., to '/d per 
copy? What do the total weekly expenses amount to and what is the 
income—hence what is the deficit? 

Mr Thimm has been talked round very nicely. Das Volk is now 
displayed in his window 1. A conspicuous position, a much better one 
than the Hermann and the Kozoxons, which flank it. A few more 
‘Gatherings’ and the last-named? will doubtless be done for 

4 to wit - > outsider - © What is to be done? - 4 Engels has ‘den letzteren’, probably a 
slip of the pen; ‘den ersteren’ (‘the first-named’) would fit the context better, as the 
‘Gatherings’ were directed against the Hermann, not against the Kosoxono. 

altogether.*#” The way in which Kinkel has suddenly taken to his 
heels is very funny.* 

Next week’s LeapeR on the peace ought to be done by you. It’s 
important, I think, since we’ve been lucky enough to get hold of 
the secret articles,” that this point be fully exploited. As you are 
making a Tribune article out of it anyway, that should be easy for 
you. This point may well give the Volk a significance of quite a 
different order, and exact for it a position in the press. Think this 
over. 

Let me know also by return what you people would like me 
to write about this week; then I shall do it on Wednesday 
evening. 

I have sent for the Portfolio and am studying these and other 
Russian documents and Palmerstoniana; shall also get hold of as 
many BACK Numbers Of The Free Press as possible. It’s really high time 
I went through the stuff, seeing what importance the thing is now 
assuming. Can you tell me where the Russian memorandum on 
Russian policy’ originated and which Prussian ministerial crisis 
brought it to the light of day**?? So far as I am concerned the 
internal evipence and the classic phraseology are, of course, more 
than sufficient, but I need these racrs for the debate with Philistia; 
anyway it is stupid of Urquhart to be so unnecessarily secretive. 

Is there anything to be wormed out of Blind quoad* Vogt **°? 
The ‘little man’ doesn’t believe the thing, of course, and asks ‘why, 
then, didn’t we see to it that the documents were printed’? 

Generally speaking the documents in Vol. 1 of the Portfolio are 
not the most important, though there are some nice things among 
them, particularly those by Pozzo di Borgo and the memorandum 
to the German governments.’ What idiots they are and how the 
Russians ‘must laugh at them! 

The memorandum in The Free Press is a true classic from start 
to finish, including the almost comical way in which the worthy 
diplomats make out that regicide is at once self-sacrifice and a 
republican virtue. Still, it seems to be going a bit far when 
Nicholas* gives his son" this kind of lesson with regard to the 

4 G,. Kinkel, ‘An unsere Leser’, Hermann, No. 26, 2 July 1859. - > See this volume, 
p. 464.-¢ K. Marx, ‘The Treaty of Villafranca’. - d ‘Memoir on Russia, for the 
Instruction of the Present Emperor’, The Free Press, No. 7, 13 July 1859. - 
€ concerning - ‘Copy of a Despatch from Count Pozzo di Borgo, Addressed to 
Count Nesselrode. Dated Paris, 10th (22nd) December, 1826’; ‘Copy of a Very Secret 
Despatch from Count Pozzo di Borgo, dated Paris, the 28th November, 1828’; 
‘Memoir on the State and Prospects of Germany, Drawn up under the Direction of a 
Minister at St. Petersburgh, and Confidentially Communicated to Several of the 
German Governments’. - 8 Nicholas I - h future Emperor Alexander I 

murder of his own father; I should say this passage has been 
altered.*°? 

Is it not possible to get hold of the complete document? Dronke 
tells me that in Glasgow there is a srationer by the name of Love in 
St. Enoch Square who sells the Hermann and would be a very 
suitable man to sell Das Volk. It might be a good idea to send him 
a few copies and a letter. 

Have you sent it to America? It’s about time you did. To 
Weydemeyer, Steffen and the chap in New York? who once wrote 
to you about communist matters.” 

Warmest regards to your wife and the girls. 

Your 
F. E.