Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, June 11, 1852

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To Weydemeyer in New York

Manchester, 11 June 1852

Dear Weydemeyer,

We have received the first issue of the Revolution, but we had imagined you would contrive to include Freiligrath’s poem about Kinkel, which would not after all have increased the cost very much. While the closeness of the print and the large format were unavoidable due to lack of funds, it is a great pity that this should have made it so difficult to read, particularly when misprints distort the meaning. But what surprises us is the difficulty you seem to have about dispatching the 300 copies we ordered other than by post. Your friends over there, Helmich and Korff, must be colossal asses indeed if they can’t so much as tell you that the mail steamers also carry parcels and even heavy bales of merchandise, and that all details concerning freight, etc., etc. can be obtained at the steamship offices—not, of course, at the post office. The location of these steamship offices may be found in any newspaper announcement, beneath which there is always the name of a local business house. Moreover there are any number of forwarding agents concerned with handling such things, for example Edwards, Sandford & Co. of Liverpool and London, who also have an office in New York. You simply address the parcel as follows:

(at the top) per ... Steamer

care of Messrs Edwards, Sandford Sc Co.,

Liverpool

(underneath)

F. E.

care of Messrs Ermen & Engels

Manchester

Printed books, not bound.

That’s all, and sent in this way it costs only a few shillings which Ermen & Engels can stand. But it’s really too bad that people like Helmich and Korff, who have been in New York so long and who, moreover, also do a certain amount of business, should be ignorant of matters with which any child over here is familiar. The copies of the Turn-Zeitung have not yet arrived, either here or in London; you should make inquiries at your post office.

The printing costs are colossal; for £5 per sheet—scarcely more than you have had to pay—we could get the thing similarly printed in London. Paper should, after all, be cheaper over there, since here it carries a duty of 1 ½ d (3 cents) per lb. Perhaps you could inquire about the price from the local wholesale paper merchants and let us know what it is.

Just send here anything destined for Europe. Marx has a German bookseller in London who is reliable and upon whom, moreover, he can keep an eye; this man will see to distribution both here, and in Germany, Switzerland, etc., etc., in return for a modest percentage. If, then, when you receive this letter you have not yet sent off the parcel with the 50 copies for London and 250 for Cologne, take the opportunity of including in it as many as you think appropriate, or can spare, for the German bookseller to dispose of. But should it already have gone, send nothing more until we ask for it. We shall, of course, charge a higher price here, if only to defray our costs and the bookseller’s commission. 15 silver groschen is well within the means of the German philistine.

Since the second issue is to be devoted exclusively to Freiligrath’s poems, it is presumably already in print. These things, particularly the Kinkel poem, should not be held back a moment longer than is unavoidable. This should really have been published in one way or another after Kinkel’s return to New York; but the longer it lingers, the more it loses in topicality and, even for things which are largely written with an eye to immortality, there is a certain period during which they are especially rewarding and at their most topical. But since I deliberately write, not with an eye to immortality, but rather for the immediate present, my article on the English bourgeoisie may well be somewhat long-drawn-out, especially since a work of this kind lends itself very well to piecemeal publication amongst other material in a newspaper or weekly; in a review, however, where because of its very length it takes up most of the space, it would not be topical or interesting enough for the American-German public. Besides, Mr Derby may very well topple before August, and that’s a ticklish sort of thing to prognosticate.

While beholden to Korff for his goodwill, Dronke has no intention of going to America since he has just started a wholesale business in cigar cases, etc., etc., as agent for a Parisian house. For that matter, neither Dronke nor any of the rest of us is on the same easy terms with Korff as during the first months of the N. Rh. Z.; we still remember all too clearly die circumstances of Korff s dismissal from the newspaper and how subsequently, in New York, he published my Hungarian articles under his own name. He may be of some use to you in small ways, but you would be well advised not to trust him out of sight, and Marx is particularly anxious that Korff should not come butting in between himself and Dana, having, it seems, already caused some sort of ruction in this respect. In your letter you say that Marx will have been able to see for himself from Dana’s letter how unresponsive the Tribune is to our cause; this passage we find totally incomprehensible since Dana had written Marx a most cordial letter in which he requested, not only further instalments of the German article, but other contributions as well. It would certainly not suit us if Korff were in any way to thrust himself forward as the representative or CHAMPION of either of us in personal matters.

Since there is so much delay over the American exhibition,128 it would be better if vou were to take no further steps in respect of the leather business until you have again heard from us about it. Marx is up here just now and hence cannot for the time being speak to the Hungarian. For he and I are now engaged in a most interesting and amusing piece of work which is to be published directly. As soon as we receive the first copies we shall send you one, then we shall also be able to discuss to what extent you can use the thing and, perhaps, make money out of it towards the production of new pamphlets, for this time it’s going to be something that will indubitably sell.

Eccarius has been written to about his final instalment; he will have little to add, the workers—as was to be expected—having been beaten.

Our dear, worthy Willich has suffered a grave misfortune. Once a week Baroness Brüningk used to invite the Prussian lieutenants in London and other such great men to her table, when it was her custom to flirt with these gallant knights. This, it seems, caused the blood to rush violently to the head of our virtuous Willich, who, finding himself one day tête-à-tête with the young lady, was suddenly overwhelmed by a fit of uncontrollable lust and, quite without warning, made a somewhat brutish attack upon her. But this had in no way been madame’s intention, and she ordered our paragon of knightly virtue to be thrown out of the house sans façon.

‘Blessed is he that virtue loves,

Woe to him that’s lost it...

A wretched stripling, here am I

Chucked out into the street’

and the morally pure stoic, who as a rule felt a far greater sympathy for fair-haired young tailor’s apprentices than for pretty young women, may thank his stars that he did not in the end find himself back ‘in the guardroom at Kassel’ as a result of this involuntary, instinctive outbreak of his physical ego so long kept enchained. The thing has been noted and circulated with great glee throughout London. There is, by the way, some prospect that you may have this gallant fellow in New York before too long. Over here the man ‘who enjoyed the respect of all parties and even of his enemies’, is daily losing more ground. He maintains relations with Kinkel and Schapper, his right and left hand props, only with reluctance (and in Kinkel’s case on pecuniary grounds), for he hates them both and they him; he has several times received rough treatment at the hands of the inferior refugees, since when he has given them up. After this latest business he will never again be allowed into houses where there are young women, in addition to which he has now lost his aura of virtue. On the other hand he hears talk of how the men of Willich’s Corps in New York stick together and he has the gallant Weitling there—hence, and more particularly when the flow of money from the loan fund27 begins to dry up, he will probably make himself scarce. Indeed, he has already sent out an apostle in the shape of Heise from Kassel—this fellow forms part of his personal entourage. In addition he is now dispatching another harbinger, poor old Mirbach, who fell into his clutches through sheer, bitter necessity and, as a result of his total ignorance of the emigration’s antecedents and his theoretical confusion, was naturally dazzled by such fine airs. He is au fond a very good fellow, a political nonentity, but otherwise honourable and, militarily speaking, I find him 10 times preferable to all the London great men. He used to call on Marx, but never unchaperoned by that lout Imandt and that philistine jackass Schily, so that it was never possible to talk to him frankly.

In America our Willich would be in his element; the old crew in New York, which by now must have run completely wild and disintegrated into ROWDIES AND LOAFERS, would very soon grow sick of him and beat him black and blue—even over here his relationship with the swine finally degenerated into the low vulgarity of a mob of rogues bickering over plunder—while his friend, that experienced trickster Weitling, would likewise ensure him a brilliant future.

But I must close now. Marx sends his regards—many regards from us both to your wife.

Your

F. E.