Engels to Marx
in London

[Manchester, about 1 August 1851]

Dear Marx,

Enclosed the second half of the £5 note.

I did not know that Schramm had sailed for Paris; you had written nothing to me about it. I therefore read with the greatest astonishment in the *Kölnische Zeitung* that he had drowned – unfortunately that will not be true. The dog is a great nuisance – he has been allowed to get too close, and he is a despicable fellow through and through. You are right, though, shouting and kicking up a row do no good; one must quietly let the fellow go his way until one has power over him. As I said, it would be quite good if he really had drowned in the canal; but he probably spread the rumour himself – c’est une manière comme une autre de faire parler de soi.

Weydemeyer, then, is off to America and wants to see to it that he gets the New York *Arbeiterzeitung*, which Fenner von Fenneberg now has, into his own hands. If he can hold his own in New York, he will certainly be more useful to us there than in London, where the confusion would only be increased. A solid chap like him is precisely what we have been lacking in New York, and after all New York is not out of the world, and with Weydemeyer one can be sure that, should the case arise, he will be on the spot at once.

The plan with the lithographic correspondence is quite good. Only you must keep the thing perfectly secret – little Bamberger and others, once the idea is given, would immediately forestall you. In your place I should have the thing advertised in the German-American papers as soon as the first arrangements have been made, and should sign it myself as director in order to give the thing a boost. If the thing thus goes on your responsibility and you think it might in any way be useful to name me as a collaborator, you are naturally free to do so. If, however, you wish to keep your name out of the affair, for which I see no necessity at all – car enfin, why should you not also have the right to form an industrial firm and to continue the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung* in lithographed form – then Lupus should form the firm. Weydemeyer could be of the greatest use to you in New York for this, especially in collecting the money, which is the main thing. I am convinced the thing will take enormously, and the many American correspondents in London etc. will very soon feel it.

If you name yourself as director, there is no question that the thing will take better, especially right from the start; if you only let Lupus name himself, the moral responsibility disappears and you can give free rein to his Silesian bluster à la Luther, which suits the German-Americans very well, far better than your style, which forces them to think. In any case you must make it a rule to write as badly and as incoherently as possible, otherwise you will soon spoil it with this public.

What is this new work by Proudhon you mention?

I shall do an article for Jones under my own signature; I only wish Jones would send me as complete a copy as possible of his “Notes”, which is not to be got hold of here. What is his address, I have forgotten it.

The reports from America about the cotton goods trade are also bad. The markets are overstocked, and the Yankees themselves are manufacturing too much for the present state of the market.

Write again soon; I am bored to death here.
Yours,
F. E.

N.B. Do just be sure to keep your papers well out of the house. I have been very closely watched here for some time and cannot take a step without having 2 or 3 informers at my heels. Herr Bunsen will not have let the opportunity pass by unused to provide the English government with new and important disclosures as to our dangerousness.