Letter to Hermann Engels, May 24, 1864

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ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS

IN BARMEN

Manchester, 24 May 1864

Dear Hermann,

You must excuse my keeping you waiting some little while for a reply to your letter of the 7th and that of the 18th.

As regards the £"1,000, I shan't be able to remit this to you before 1 July, or perhaps a little later. That is to say I must await the statement of accounts on 30 June of this year, since G. Ermen will release himself from the contract if so much as a penny is missing from the £10,000 I have to put up. Until then, therefore, I must tread carefully. I also mentioned this to Mother in my letter of 7 April, and hence the best thing would be for you to pay Wiebelhaus & Busch from over there. In any case, for a sum of the order of £1,000, I wouldn't be able to lay my hands on bills as short as a week after date. More about this matter, then, in July or August; I am in no hurry whatever.

It had struck me, by the way, that this £"1,000 could be partially reimbursed by my prevailing on G. E. to send off to you in advance the interest amounting to £375 due on 30 June; but, since our bankers are now paying us 6% interest, he'll take good care not to give you the money at 5%.

As regards my balance with you over there, this should be dealt with as follows:

On 30 June, the £10,000 which, under the terms of the contract, must remain here, will be debited to me over there. Deduct from that the portion of my balance there on which the interest accrues to me; as to the remainder I must refund you the interest à 5%. The portion of my balance of which Mother has the usufruct would best continue to be credited to me separately, since it doesn't figure in my favour when interest is calculated and would therefore only muddle up the calculation.

The one question that may have to be considered in this connection is the exchange rate at which £s are to be converted into talers. In my view, the simplest thing in all present and future cases relating to my account would be to take the average rate of 6 talers 20 silver groschen, as Father also used to do in his books, so that the £10,000 will be debited to me as 66,666.20 talers, while all reimbursements made by me in £s will be credited at the same rate. Think it over and let me know what you think about it.

As regards the transfer of the £10,000 to my account, you have no need to advise G. E. further; the contract, to which you are all subject, is sufficient.

Very many thanks for the pictures. They've touched up your face a bit more than is necessary; apart from that, they're very good. But you must now see to it that the other ones for my album follow on soon, and also remind the good Boellings about it, for so far I have none of them at all. In the case of the Blanks, I don't have one of Maria Senior, Emil Junior, Rudolf, and the younger ones.

Apropos. Should Ermen &: Engels over there be asked to pay the costs of an insertion, to which I was a co-signatory, in the deaths' column of the Kölner, Breslauer and Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, I would ask you to attend to it and debit me accordingly.

Give my love to Mother, if she is still in Barmen, and tell her that I've been keeping very well. Much love to Emma (she's still not as plump as she used to be, but I trust that will resolve itself) and the little ones as well as to Rudolf and family, the Blanks, and the Boellings.

Your

Friedrich