Letter to Karl Marx, February 28, 1851

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 28 February 1851


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 1, 1929.
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, pp. 307

TO MARX IN LONDON

[Manchester,] Friday [28 February 1851]

Dear Marx,

Your letter of the day before yesterday didn't arrive till this morning. Had I already had all these details yesterday I would have written to our DEAR Harney in quite a different vein. But sooner or later he'll turn up and then I'll let him have a piece of my mind.

It would not, I believe, be a great deal of use to take serious legal proceedings over this business. Apart from Harney and Jones and the Chartists, the business would fizzle out in mutual recriminations and accusations. With the help of any advocate, the others would cause the most impudent questions to be put to Schramm and Pieper, e. g. whether Schramm had not stolen funds from Great Windmill Street,[1] etc., etc., which, however vigorously they were parried, would be enough to ruin the whole effect. The defendants' witnesses would swear that Schramm had said such and such, they would recall certain of Schramm's scenes in Great Windmill Street and inflate them out of all proportion so as to depict Schramm as a DISTURBER OF PUBLIC MEETINGS, etc., and the MAGISTRATE, only too happy to see the demagogues dubbing each other rascals, would allow anything that might throw a compromising light on either party. Schramm, however, should use it as a threat.

Besides, he is taken FOR A CARE-THE-DEVIL, RECKLESS SORT OF CHARACTER, and they'll believe him capable of such excesses. He should give Landolphe a box on the ears and practise shooting; the chap's always getting involved in such affairs[2] and, more than anyone else, he should know how to shoot.

The case would after all end up with nothing more than the rudest of snubs for both parties from the MAGISTRATE—especially as it would be heard up in Islington, where heaven knows what sort of old jackasses the MAGISTRATES are. And if Landolphe, représentant du peuple[3] , were to state that Schramm could only have come with the intention of making trouble, etc., don't you think that ultimately this would impress the public more than Schramm's and Pieper's statement? A great scandal could be made of the business, but then Schramm would risk having part of the scandal rebound on him in the form of insinuations.

And again, one sure consequence of such a scandal would be the introduction of a new Aliens Bill[4] to protect the honest reactionaries coming over from the Continent for the Exhibition.

But when given the cold shoulder by Landolphe, why the devil didn't Schramm go straight to Harney pour le mettre en cause?[5]

Just time for the post. Adieu.

Your F. E.

  1. ↑ An allusion to the false accusation made against Marx's and Engels' associates, Heinrich Bauer and Karl Pfänder, of appropriating money belonging to the German Workers' Educational Society in London (see Note 328).
  2. ↑ An allusion to a duel between Conrad Schramm and August Willich on 11 September 1850 in Belgium in which Schramm was slightly wounded. Schramm challenged Willich because the latter had insulted him at a meeting of the Communist League Central Authority at the end of August 1850 during heated disputes between supporters of Marx and Engels and adherents of the Willich-Schapper separatist group.
  3. ↑ representative of the people
  4. ↑ The Aliens Bill, enacted by the British Parliament in 1793, was renewed in 1802, 1803, 1816, 1818 and, finally, in 1848 (An Act to Authorise for One Year, and to the End of the Then Next Session of Parliament, the Removal of Aliens from the Realm). In 1850 public opinion obstructed the renewal of this Bill despite Conservative efforts.
  5. ↑ to call him to account