London, 1 June 1854 
28 Dean Street, Soho 

Dear Lassalle, 

I have been seriously ill these past 2 or 3 weeks and, on top of 
that, the 3 children* went down with the measles, from which they 
have only just recovered, so that the whole house has been turned 
into a hospital. I did not start going out again until 2 days ago 
and, since my head was the worst affected and all conversation 
exhausted me, I have seen no visitors during this time. The result 
is that I have heard little or nothing of the émigrés’ activities and 
intentions. As you will be aware, Mazzini is in Switzerland 
incognito. From letters from Washington I gather that the émigrés 
are, as always, dreaming ambitious dreams. The confidential 
reports sent to America by the gentlemen here percolate back to 
me through a channel in Washington.” 

In my next I may be a@ méme* to send you the detailed 
information you ask for on the doings of the émigrés.™ 

a Jenny, Laura and Edgar - » Cluss - © in a position 

Weerth is at present in California. It is rumoured that he is on 
the point of marrying a certain Miss Worbs or Worms, of 
Hamburg, the daughter of one of his former principals. 

Even The Times has been poking some mild fun at the ‘Cologne 
TrickErs’ in London who bellow from a hundred throats—bellow at 
the English: 

‘Softly sounding through my mind 
Many a delightful chime’* 

or else, 

‘Lonely I am not alone’> 

and more in similar vein. 

As regards the ‘Palmerston’,—he is presently straining every 
nerve to gain complete control of the War Office, though he has a 
rival in the Duke of Newcastle, a Peelite—, only the first few of 
the articles I wrote for the Tribune have been printed here as 
pamphlets.© I myself prevented further publication, as pamphlets 
by Urquhart were appearing alternately in the same series of 
‘Political Fly-Sheets’**' and I do not wish to be numbered among 
the followers of that gentleman with whom I have only one thing 
in common, viz. my views on Palmerston, but to whom in all other 
matters I am diametrically opposed, as became apparent at our 
very first meeting.“ He is a romantic reactionary—a Turk, and 
would gladly guide the West back to Turkish standards and 
structures. I have not sent you these few short pamphlets as the 
cost of posting small parcels is disproportionately high. As for the 
substance of the matter, you are perfectly right to abide by your 
opinion until wholly unequivocal facts cause you to change it. 
What has gone to make up my own view is not this or that isolated 
fact—each isolated fact admitting of a variety of interpretations— 
but the concatenation of all the steps taken by this man, the whole 
context of his activities since 1829. In it I have discovered a 
consistent plan that assumes various and often seemingly con- 
tradictory forms but is always directed towards the same goal, a 
plan uniformly executed with the same supreme disdain. 

As regards the specific points you raise, my comments are: 

1. Pacifico Expedition?” In a work by one of Palmerston’s 
former secretaries at the embassy in Athens—1836—namely the 
Diplomatic History of Greece by Mr Parish, you will find to begin 

a Heine, ‘Neuer Fruhling’, 6. Gedicht. - > P. A. Wolff, Preciosa, Act II, Scene 2. The 
drama provided the libretto for Weber’s opera of the same title. - ¢ K. Marx. 
‘Palmerston’, II, HI. - 4 See this volume, pp. 412-13. 

with proof that, from 1830 onwards, Palmerston did all he could 
to turn Greece into a Russian province. In the end the Pacifico 
Expedition dropped her into Russia’s lap. At the same time it also 
gained Palmerston popularity in England, thereby enabling him to 
further Russia’s interests in the same year by concluding with 
Brunnow a treaty on the Danish succession, a treaty that was not 
made effective until 1852. If, having done all the miscuter he 
wanted, Palmerston gave way to France over this affair—the 
Greek one—, his compliance was simply ‘diplomacy’ vis-a-vis the 
English people. Papers hostile to him were already beginning to 
point out that in 1840 he had turned England into the ally of 
Russia and into the antagonist of France. 

2. Recognition of the coup d’état.* Necessary to get Bonaparte 
into his toils. Similarly, in connection with the Spanish troubles, 
he brought the Quadruple Alliance into being earlier in order to 
get Louis Philippe into the mire.’ 

3. The instruction of 19 June 1839—wholly justifies my view. 
It was not London but Paris which suggested that in no 
circumstances should Russia be allowed to carry out the Treaty of 
Unkiar-Skelessi (which, by the by, was of Mr Palmerston’s 
making). The proof—a dispatch from Soult to the Baron de 
Bourqueney, 30 May 1839. Similarly 17 June 1839, etc. Palmer- 
ston, who made as if to believe that the Sultan wished to see the 
Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi put into effect and the Russians in 
Constantinople, sent a dispatch to Earl Granville in Paris on 19 
June, enclosing his ‘prorosep instructions’ of even date ‘ro THE Admiral, 
Siz Roserr Sroprorp’, in which, among many other ambiguous and 
inane proposals, he also instructed the Admiral if necessary ‘ro 
FORCE THE PASSAGE OF Darpaneues’. Soult, with great bon sens? (see 
dispatch from Earl Granville to Viscount Palmerston, Paris, 28 
June 1839),drew Palmerston’s attention to the fact that it was not 
the Sultan but Russia who was their enemy, that this forcing of the 
Dardanelles was inane and that it would suffice if the English and 
French ambassadors in Constantinople were to ask the Sultan— 
who desired nothing better—to permit the entry of the United Fleets 
into the Dardanelles. To this Palmerston could raise no objection, 
but put forward a proposal even more inane, whereupon Soult 
wrote: 

“The nosce Lorp would seem to resign himself with creat FACILITY TO 
THE CONTINGENCY OF A RUSSIAN OCCUPATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE 2 

And so it goes on, Palmerston always thwarting French action 

4 Bonaparte’s coup d’état of 2 December 1851 in France. - > good sense 

against Russia while seeming to rage against Mohammed Ahi, until 
Brunnow arrives in London, and the two of them conclude the 
treaty of 1840, subsequently ratified in the Dardanelles treaty of 
1841, which was no more than a European sanction of the Treaty 
of Unkiar-Skelessi.™ 

I should be greatly obliged to you if you would write to me 
often and at length about conditions in Germany, particularly 
Prussia. 

Your 
K. M.