20. K. Marx and F. Engels. To the Editor of The Times
Sir,— In your number of Friday last[3] we perceive, among the police reports, an account of an interview of Messrs. Fothergill, Struve, and others, at the Mansion-house, with Mr. Alderman Gibbs, on behalf of the German refugees.[259] We beg to declare that neither any of the members of the undersigned committee, nor any of the German refugees supported by that committee, have had any connexion with this affair.
We request you, Sir, to publish this declaration in your next, as, in the interest of our nationality, we must protest against the numerous German refugees residing in London being made responsible for a step taken by some of them upon their own authority.
We are, Sir, your most obedient servants
The Democratic Socialist Committee for German Political Refugees—
Ch. Marx Ch. Pfaender F. Engels H. Bauer A. Willich 20 Great Windmill Street, Haymarket, May 27, 1850(1)
Published in The Times No. 20500, May 28, 1850
Reprinted from the newspaper and checked with the rough draft by Engels
Endnotes
[3] In May 1849, when the counter-revolution was on the upsurge, the Prussian Government issued an order expelling Marx and the other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from Prussia. This measure, prepared well in advance, was applied when the main uprisings in the Rhine Province had been virtually suppressed. On his return to Cologne in April 1848, Marx applied for Prussian citizenship which he had been forced to renounce in 1845 when he was living in Belgium as an emigrant. Despite the Cologne Magistrate's favourable reply to his application, however, the Cologne royal district authorities and the Minister of the Interior refused to grant it, and Marx remained a "foreigner", who could at any moment be accused of abusing hospitality and expelled. The royal district authorities' note to this effect followed on May 11, 1849, and on May 16 Marx was given 24 hours to leave Prussia. Weerth and Dronke, who did not enjoy Prussian citizenship either, received similar orders. Legal proceedings were instituted against Engels for his part in the Elberfeld uprising. The last issue, No. 301, of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared on May 19, 1849.
[259] Gustav Struve and Thomas Fothergill, claiming to represent German political refugees in London, approached the acting Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Gibbs, with a request for employment to be provided for one hundred German refugees who were unable to find work to earn a living. Gibbs refused on the grounds that many English workers were in the same plight. An item to this effect appeared in The Times of May 24, 1850.