3. Frederick Engels'Petition for Permission to Reside in Berne
DRAFT
To the Directorate of Justice and Police of the Canton of Berne, in Berne.
On the instruction of the passport office, I take the liberty of submitting a petition for permission to reside in Berne.
I was living in Cologne (Rhenish Prussia) as a writer, when I became involved in the court investigationa instituted following the unrest which broke out in that city on September 25 and 26 of this year and was threatened with arrest. I evaded this arrest by flight, and a few days later a warrant was issued against me (Kölnische Zeitung of October 1, 2 and 3),b through which my status as political refugee is established. I offer if necessary to produce a copy of this warrant for the Directorate.
On arrival in Switzerland I preferred to claim the hospitality of the canton and city of Berne rather than that of any other place
1. because Berne is sufficiently far from the German border to deprive the German authorities of any pretext for importuning the Swiss Government with claims and assertions that I am abusing the right of asylum by subversive activities etc.c;
2. because just now Berne affords me the opportunity to study in the work of the Swiss Federal Assembly the practical effect of a Constitution from which Germany in any case can learn much,
The following phrase: "instituted against me on a charge of instigating to revolt etc., etc.", is crossed out in the manuscript.— Ed.
particularly at a time when the German people may be in a position to give itself a Constitution similar to this in one or another respect.
I presume that my exile will not be of too long a duration, for apart from the slight prospect of stability of the present order of things in Prussia, I have every reason to expect a verdict of acquittal from the Cologne jury, and by my flight I mainly intended only to escape a lengthy detention on remand. I believe, therefore, that by next spring I shall be able to return to my country.
As far as my means of subsistence are concerned, they are perfectly secured, as I can prove if necessary.
Also on the instruction of the passport office, I enclose the passport which the French Provisional Government issued on request when in the month of April of this year I returned from Paris to my homeland, and which was forwarded to me from Cologne.
I take this opportunity to assure the Directorate of my highest esteem.
Frederick Engels
Berne, Postgasse No. 43 B, c/o Herr Haeberli, November 15, 1848