Letter to Karl Marx, February 18, 1858

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 February 1858


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 in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


142

ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

[Manchester,] 18 February 1858

Dear Moor,

Every day this week I have meant to write to you, and every day the steady rise in prices has stopped me from doing so. You will remember my telling you[1] that 6d for Middling Orleans was the highest price compatible with FULL TIME. NOW, with Middling Orleans at 53/4d, 7/8 of all spinners have gone on to FULL TIME, and the result of this asininity is that, out of sheer impatience, they've pushed Middling Orleans up to 71/4d in 6 weeks! Yarn and cloth haven't followed in the same proportion, of course; the manufac- turer's MARGIN between the price of his raw material and the finished product has been reduced to below cost price and now the asses want to revert to SHORT TIME, which they ought never to have abandoned!

The Guardians will go off today at the same time.

I trust that your bill has been honoured. Since you had in any case advised them so long in advance, they should certainly have told you long ago had there been any intention of returning it.

Enclosed another little thing for Dana.[2] If the fellow wants to lay down the law on the strength of his paltry 2 dollars, then he deserves some rough words. At all events he can't expect more than we are already providing—largely original work instead of the measly compilations he is getting from elsewhere. Urge him to pay better and que puis nous verrions.[3] As regards Badajos,[4] the wretched Brockhaus[5] really led me astray.

'Burmah' is A VERY LABORIOUS ARTICLE. Could you not take over 'Bülow' and 'Beresford'? Up here even the bare bones of the biographies are lacking, but I could let you have the chief points on the military side.

I shall discuss equitation another time. Au fond[6] the thing is the material basis for all my military studies, as you know. The crapauds[7] regard the sordid Bonaparte as a hero because he sits elegantly on a horse though only a passable rider; there are plenty of witnesses over here who know that he is A VERY INDIFFERENT FENCER and that he shirks many an obstacle which YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT would tackle without a second thought. Moreover riding is the only physical accomplishment in which I have acquired a modicum of competence and anyway the element of danger in hunting and jumping is so small (probability 1:10,000) that it has an irresistible attraction. Anyway, sois tranquille,[8] if I break my neck it won't be by falling off a horse. Warm regards to all the FAMILY.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 231.
  2. ↑ Engels presumably refers to his articles 'Camp' and 'Catapult' for The New American Cyclopaedia. Marx helped Engels to collect material for them (see, for example, Marx's letter to Engels of 1 February 1858). There is no entry in Marx's notebook about their despatch to New York. It is quite possible that Engels sent Marx the article 'Coehorn' with 'Camp' and 'Catapult'.—267
  3. ↑ then we shall see
  4. ↑ At the end of his article 'Albuera' Engels noted that the siege of the French-held fortress of Badajos (Southwestern Spain) by the allied forces of Britain, Spain and Portugal was raised the day after their victory over the French at Albuera on 16 May 1811 (see present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 10-11). In fact the fortress was besieged by the allies three times during the Peninsular War between Britain and Napoleonic France. The first siege in May 1811 was lifted before the battle of Albuera because of the approaching French reserves. On 25 May, following the victory at Albuera, the allies resumed the siege but they were forced to raise it on 17 June. The allies laid siege to Badajos for the third time in March 1812 and took it on 6 April. As Engels pointed out in his letter to Marx on 18 February 1858 (see this volume, p. 267), the inaccuracy in the article 'Albuera' is accounted for by a mistake in one of the sources he used.—251, 252, 267
  5. ↑ Brockhaus' Konversations Lexikon
  6. ↑ at bottom
  7. ↑ i.e. jumper
  8. ↑ don't worry