Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 18, 1861

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

London, 18 January [1861]

Dear Frederick,

You must excuse my failure to acknowledge receipt of the £3 ere now. On Monday I had a relapse and, since there was no sign of improvement on Tuesday, I had to have recourse to Allen again, so that I am at present UNDER MEDICAL TREATMENT. Writing means that I have to stoop, which hurts, and so I kept putting it off. As you see, I am as tormented as Job, though not as god-fearing.

Siebel—whose time appears to be very valuable since there hasn't been a single line from him—has sent me 2 Cologne Anzeigers, containing two short reviews favourable to my book. The bookseller's advertisement was in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung supplement of 1 January.

I'd be glad if you would let me have for The Times a short critique in English of the Prussian amnesty—because of Allen's orders that I should refrain altogether from writing for at least another week. The following are the main points to be emphasised:

1. That the amnesty is the lousiest to have been proclaimed in any country (not excluding Austria) since 1849; (mesquin typically Prussian);

2. That the state of the 'liberal' Prussian press may be judged by the plaudits it bestows upon this piece of ordure;

3. That, whenever a new government comes to power in Prussia, an amnesty is proclaimed in respect of certain minor misdemeanours, resistance to gendarmes, insults to officials, etc., and that the present amnesty is in fact no more than this.

4. In effect all refugees—i.e. all who took part in the revolution of 1848/49—are excluded from the amnesty. The prospect held out to those refugees liable to be sentenced by Our civil courts and who are permitted 'to return without let or hindrance' (as though everyone had not always been 'legally' entitled to return), is that the Ministry of Justice will ex officio lodge pleas for clemency on their behalf. This, in effect, guarantees nothing. This absurd formula was chosen presumably because Prussia is a 'state under the rule of law' whose constitution precludes the king from suppressing any judicial inquiry. A pretty mockery in a state where, on the admission of the Prussian Gerichtszeitung (in Berlin), there has been no justice for the past ten years. Furthermore, sentences in absentia could be AT ONCE pronounced and quashed. This 'legal' coquetry is indeed deserving of recognition when Stieber, Greif, and Goldheim continue to be left at large—ditto Simons, Manteuffel, etc.

5. Beastliest of all is § 4 of the amnesty, whereby 'all those liable to be sentenced by military tribunals in the near future' must first 'appeal' for William's 'clemency', whereupon he 'will reserve his final decision until such time as he has received a report from Our Military Department of Justice'.

Consider in this connection that, given the Prussian Landwehr's constitution, it is most exceptional for a Prussian refugee to be outside the jurisdiction of a 'military tribunal'; that the 'plea for clemency' is categorically prescribed, and nothing positive is promised in return for this humiliating procedure; finally that, more than any refugee, William himself is in need of an 'amnesty' since, from a strictly legal standpoint, he had no business to intervene in Baden,⁰ etc.

The Times will undoubtedly accept a critique of this kind with the utmost pleasure. I would send it simultaneously to other papers as well, just signing it, of course, 'A PRUSSIAN REFUGEE'. At the same time, I would write a personal letter to the Editor.³

It is the only way we can give these Prussian dogs, and the corporal¹' in charge of them, their deserts.

Your

K. M.