Letter to Karl Marx, December 16, 1869

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 December 1869


Printed according to the original. Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ENGELS TO MARX[1]

IN LONDON

Manchester, 16 December 1869

Dear Moor,

Enclosed—the desired remittance. This time I have been able to make it one hundred pounds, since a minor error to my[2] [3] disadvantage was found in the last accounts, and Sir Godfrey[4] had to make it good to me subsequently—IT WILL COME IN FOR CHRISTMAS.

That damned Giraldus Cambrensis dances before me like a will-o'-the-wisp. I must get the fellow, since he is the first foreign, that is to say first authentic, source on the state of Ireland on the arrival of the English, and the quotations I have seen lead me to believe that I shall find something more. The book, called Hibernia expugnata,[5] is nowhere to be found, but the first part, which interests me, is in the Frankfurt (!) edition of Camden's Britannia? I don't know whether in another edition. This edition is naturally not here; an English edition in the FREE LIBRARY does not contain Giraldus[6] ; the third volume of another edition in the lending library which might contain it is lost, and thus my only hope is the Chetham LIBRARY,[7] to which I shall go tomorrow. Incidentally, this hunt for sources is quite a different sort of pleasure than it was to hunt for customers on the blasted stock exchange.

Are Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland and Political Survey of Ireland two different works, or only different editions? For the latter is here.

I have here a later edition of Kane's book; the one from you is unfortunately of little use because of its age (1846).[8]

I am making a written record of each period as soon as I have fairly finished my studies. Then you have the interrelations more clearly in your head and, altogether, a more vivid idea of the business, and can still make corrections. That is why, on the whole, I am keeping so strictly to the historic periods in arranging the order in which I plough through sources. I am nearly finished up to 1600.

On the side, I am reading Grant's CAMPAIGN AGAINST Richmond by Cannon.[9] Grant is a self-willed jackass who had so little confidence in himself and his army that he never dared undertake the simplest flanking manoeuvre against Lee, who was weaker by half, before he had weakened him by several days of frontal attack and had nailed him down in his original position. He relied upon the simple calculation that if he lost three men for every one of Lee's, then Lee would run out of people before he did. Nowhere else have there been such brutal butcheries as on that occasion. It was[10] the day-long skirmishes in the forests that cost so many lives; the wooded terrain made detours very difficult, and this is Grant's only excuse.

Best greetings to the LADIES.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ A fragment of this letter was published in English for the first time in: Marx and Engels, On the United States, Moscow, 1979.
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 395, 396
  3. ↑ 97.
  4. ↑ Gottfried Ermen
  5. ↑ Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia hibernica et expugnatio hibernica. In: Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, Vol. V.
  6. ↑ Engels probably means the English edition of the book by W. Camden Britannia or Chorographical Description of the most flourishing Kingdoms England, Scotland and Ireland and the Islands adjoining, London, 1637. The book, originally written in Latin, was published in 1590 as one volume with another work by Camden, Hiberniae et insularum Britanniae adiacentium descriptio, which Engels ascribed, apparently erroneously, to Giraldus Cambrensis. In his further work on the history of Ireland (see Note 438), Engels used the publication (in Latin) Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, Longmans, 1863. Expugnatio was included in Vol. V of this edition, which was published in 1867 (see Note 528), and also appeared in the English translation published by Bohn in London in 1863, The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis.
  7. ↑ Chetham Library—the oldest library in Manchester, founded in 1653. Marx worked there together with Engels in 1845 during his first stay in England.
  8. ↑ Probably an error in the text; the first edition of Robert Kane's The Industrial Resources of Ireland appeared in 1844, and the second—in 1845 in Dublin. Engels probably refers to the latter.
  9. ↑ J. Cannon, History of Grant's Campaign for the Capture of Richmond (1864 1865).
  10. ↑ G. Camdenus, Britannia, sive florentissimorum regnorum Anglioe, Scotce, Hiberniœ, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate.