Letter to Friedrich Engels, April 9, 1857

From Marxists-en
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 April 1857


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40
Keywords : Letter, Friedrich Engels


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 9 April 1857

9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park,

Haverstock Hill

Dear Engels,

You must excuse me for being so late in answering. For a fortnight my wife has been in worse health than for many months

past, and there has been great TROUBLE in the house. Be so good as to let me have Dana's letter back.

I am sending you through the parcels company a small bottle of eye lotion. Cornelius brought me a bottle of it from Paris, where he had had trouble with his eyes. For several weeks I had myself been suffering from inflammation of the eyes due to intensive work at night. The lotion put me right within a few days and will do you a similar service. All you have to do is put a few drops into the bad eye on getting up and on going to bed.

Conrad Schramm has died in Philadelphia of a chest complaint. I hear that in New York the Neue Zeit announcing his death has published an obituary of sorts. I haven't yet seen it.[1]

The apparent improvement on the Stock Exchanges is again petering out. Bank rate is rising again. Crédit mobilier[2] and French rentes are again going DOWN, while revelations of commer- cial sharp practice by joint stock companies in London and Paris are becoming increasingly frequent. In the latter place, I'm glad to say, the government is directly involved. You have, I sup- pose, read about the row between Péreire and Féline? I'd have copied it out for you had I not assumed that The Manchester Guardian's [woman] correspondent CHRONICLES everything of that nature. I now see the Paris Figaro from time to time, the only real journal of the Empire; it has cast off all semblance of respectability.

I don't know whether I have already drawn your attention to the two new pieces of evidence against Pam. First, Herbert told his CONSTITUENTS in South Wilts[3] that he had given orders for the bombardment of Odessa[4]; upon his resigning, Pam sent an order written with his own hand to SPARE it. Secondly, Russell told the City electorate[5] that Palmerston had given him written instructions on how to conduct himself at the Congress of Vienna,[6]

instructions which Clarendon forbade him to make public and in the execution of which LITTLE JOHN so splendidly BROKE DOWN. It's typical of old Pam to keep harping in his newspapers on Herbert's Odessa TREASON (it was Pam's popular rag, the Advertiser, that first drew attention to Herbert's family ties with Vorontsov[7]) and on Russell's Vienna TREASON.[8]

I shall search out more anti-Palmerstoniana for you. Pam's speech against Anstey (a fat pamphlet) ought to be in my possession if Pieper hasn't pinched it from me. Lengthier works are Parish, Diplomatic History of Greece and Urquhart, Central Asia.[9] On the first topic you might also read the EXPOSITIONS by Thiersch[10] and Maurenbrecher[11] which came out in 1836 (?). (It's a long time since I set eyes on them.) Of all the Blue Books,[12] the one that has impressed me most strongly is that on the second Syro-Turkish War.[13]

I've only had 5 articles in The Free Press.[14] Liebknecht, etc., have filched them from me. However I'll get them together for you. In the last one I used the text of one of your articles, in which you speak of Peter I. I've only just completed the introduction. But at first the chaps dragged their feet for months. Later, they brought it out rather more quickly. But now, when the first payment is due, I dun them in vain. If they don't do better on this POINT than hitherto, I shall have to sever the CONNECTION ALTOGETHER. They have given me a new contract, but what good is a contract to me if they don't abide by it in puncto puncti[15]?

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Regards to Lupus. Tell him that in Grimm[16] I have found the scientific derivation of Farina, the Eau de Cologne manufacturer, viz. Sanscrit: vâri[17]—Gen. vârinas.

  1. ↑ The rumour about Schramm's death proved to be false.—119
  2. ↑ Engels means the establishment of banks similar to the Société générale du Crédit mobilier, a big French joint-stock bank founded by the Péreire brothers in 1852. The Crédit mobilier was to mediate in credit transactions and help in setting up industrial concerns and building railways in France, Spain, Austria, Russia and other countries. It was closely associated with Napoleon Ill's government and under its protection engaged in large-scale speculation. It went bankrupt in 1867 and was liquidated in 1871.—34, 68, 119, 126, 128, 133, 142, 145, 216, 225, 231, 240, 244, 291, 296, 349, 360, 437
  3. ↑ An account of S. Herbert's speech, delivered on 19 March, was published in The Times, No. 22633, 20 March 1857.
  4. ↑ The bombardment of Odessa by an Anglo-French squadron took place on 22 ne April 1854, soon after Britain and France joined Turkey in the war against Russia (the Crimean war, 1853-56). It was essentially a military demonstra tion.—119
  5. ↑ An account of Russell's speech, delivered on 27 March, was published in The Times, No. 22640, 28 March 1857.
  6. ↑ Marx refers to the Vienna Conference of 1855, which was to work out the terms for peace between the participants in the Crimean war (1853-56). It was attended by representatives of Russia, Britain, France, Austria and Turkey and lasted, with intervals, from 15 March to 4 June 1855. The conference was preceded by several rounds of talks between the Ambassadors held in 1853 and 1854 on the initiative of Austrian Foreign Minister Buol, who sought to mediate between the belligerents. The conference produced no results. Britain was represented by its Special Envoy Lord John Russell.—119
  7. ↑ 'The Sham Blockade of Russia', The Morning Advertiser, No. 19832, 12 January 1855.
  8. ↑ The facts mentioned in this paragraph were dealt with in greater detail by Marx in his article 'Result of the Election', published in the New-York Daily Tribune on 22 April 1857.—119
  9. ↑ Between January and May 1856 Engels wrote a series of articles on Pan-Slavism for the New-York Daily Tribune, which did not print them. The manuscripts have not been preserved.—5, 14, 51, 68, 73, 81, 100
  10. ↑ Fr. Thiersch, De l'état actuel de la Grèce...
  11. ↑ It has not been established which work by Maurenbrecher Marx had in mind.
  12. ↑ Blue Books—periodically published collections of documents of the British Parliament and Foreign Office. Their publication began in the seventeenth century.—28, 120, 431, 561
  13. ↑ Correspondence 1839 1841, Relative to the Affairs of the East, and the Conflict Between Egypt and Turkey etc.
  14. ↑ This refers to a work planned by Marx on the history of British and Russian diplomacy in the eighteenth century, of which he only completed five chapters of the Introduction. For these he made use of pamphlets, diplomatic documents and unpublished manuscripts, mostly of the period of the Northern War (the Russo-Swedish war of 1700-21), which he found in the British Museum Library. His negotiations with Nikolaus Trübner for publication of the work ended in failure. The chapters of the Introduction appeared by instalments in Urquhart's Sheffield Free Press from late June to early August 1856 as they were sent in by Marx. Eventually publication was stopped because of arbitrary editorial abridgements and printing errors. In June 1856 the London Free Press began reprinting the text from the Sheffield paper, and on 16 August 1856 it started reproducing the chapters from the beginning, with publication continuing until 1 April 1857. In both papers the unfinished work was printed under the title Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century (see present edition, Vol. 15). In 1899 Eleanor Aveling, Marx's daughter, published it in London in book form under the heading Secret Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century.—46, 56, 73, 81, 94, 110, 112, 120
  15. ↑ to the letter
  16. ↑ J. Grimm, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache.
  17. ↑ water
Retrieved from "https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/w/index.php?title=Letter_to_Friedrich_Engels,_April_9,_1857&oldid=107467"