AT LE PERREUX 
Ryde, 28 June 1891 

My dear Lafargue, 

I have been staying here with Pumps for the past two days and 
shall remain until Thursday 2 July when I return to London. ?°* 
Meanwhile Louise has sent me your letter of the 25th. ? Fortu- 
nately I have a blank cheque which I can send you herewith made 
out for £20. Good luck! The preparations you have made for your 
defence strike me as excellent and I trust you will secure a seat in 
the Chamber without being sentenced. 

Now for something else. Enclosed you will find a letter from Field 
(Star, 23 June) together with Burrows’ reply, ?°° evidently written by 
Hyndman. Is it true that, as Field maintains, you authorised him to do 
the idiotic thing he has done? We cannot believe it. But in any case 
you will see what a letter from you to this Field has given rise to, a let- 
ter that in itself may well be perfectly innocent. This Field, a good 
lad, but bursting to play a part of some sort — even at the cost of do- 
ing a disservice to the cause he wishes to serve — purports to be acting 

for your Party and, consequently, for ours. As an ‘authorised’ agent he 
makes appeals to the rrapes unions, etc., and, tf he is known at all, it is as 
a former collaborator of Champion who is now more despised than 
ever, thanks to his exploits in Australia! 

The ground had therefore been too well prepared not to be exploit- 
ed by Mr Hyndman. Witness his reply. Every idiotic utterance of 
Field’s, every weak point in his letter is adroitly seized upon and all 
Field has done is to boost the Possibilists. * 

Nobody here can take up the gauntlet. In the first place we don’t 
know what transpired between you and Field. And then The Star, if 
they did accept a reply from us (which is doubtful, indeed more than 
doubtful), would close the correspondence after they had given Bur- 
rows another say. And Field has placed us in such an idiotic situation 
that we have no choice but to hope that the correspondence in The 
Star will be forgotten as quickly as possible. 

In any case, if you want us to go on working successfully over here 
on behalf of the congress, you must forbid Field immediately and cate- 
goncally to publish anything whatsoever that purports fo be author- 
ised by the foreign secretary of the Workers’ Party.* And don’t give 
anyone here a pretext to publish anything whatsoever authorised by 
you without having first consulted us. Otherwise we should do better 
to beat a retreat and leave everything to chance. To be placed under 
Champion’s protection— that would be the last straw! 

All was going well over here. We were working away quietly, if un- 
remittingly, and a to-do in the press (we have no newspaper, remember) 
is the last thing we want if we are to succeed. However we have 
a right to expect that our own friends won’t put a spoke in our wheel. 
We got all we wanted at Brussels, not without some difficulty, but we 
got it and we put it to good use. And that ought to be enough for you 
without the French Marxist party’s affecting to play the part of con- 
venor of the congress and arrogating to themselves a role to which 
they are not entitled. Anyhow, let us know what you wrote to Field so 
that we can try, ifonly by word of mouth, to mitigate the unfortunate 
effect of Field’s stupidity. 

Tussy still has Laura’s letter about Longuet. I shall get it back on 
my return. Our thanks to Laura for this important information. At 
all events, the matter is about to be taken in hand although, having 
read the clauses in the Code, we doubt whether the Conseil de Fa- 

* Paul Lafargue 

mille can do very much other than appoint a guardian. Tussy must 
have written to Laura. 

We have old Harney here. He has spent a month in Ventnor where 
he got rid of his chronic bronchitis but had a recurrence of rheumatic 
gout. We brought him here yesterday in a cab. He is full of aches and 
woes, poor devil, but perks up whenever the aches subside. He will be 
returning to Richmond in a day or so. 

Pumps has a small but pretty house with a garden Front AND BACK, 
heaps of fruit of every kind, vegetables, even potatoes; greenhouse 
with vines laden with grapes, etc. It is splendid for the children, but 
will Percy manage to do any business? His brothers don’t appear to 
be in any hurry to back him up with the necessary materials. Anyway 
we shall see. 

Pumps, Percy and Harney send their best wishes to you and Laura 

as do I. 

Yours ever, 

F.E.