A reply to Kossuth's "secretary"

Karl Marx

To the editor of The New York Daily Tribune

London, Tuesday, December 14, 1852

Sir: It is some time since I sent you an explanation[a] on my late correspondence respecting the movements of Kossuth and Mazzini[b], which caused such a noisy outburst from the American press. This explanation in which I stated, among other things, that Kossuth himself was a perfect stranger to the different articles called forth by my correspondence, and that my intention had been rather to give a warning, &c., than to make an attack on the parties alluded to—was all I considered necessary to say on the subject, until I received the latest American newspapers containing a sort of official refutation of my remarks from the pen of a pretended Secretary of Mr. Kossuth. With regard to this "document," I have to inform you that Kossuth, on being referred to, has assured me: 1. That, at the present time, he keeps no Secretary at all.
2. That the said "refutation" had not been written by his authorization.
3. That he had not even known of it before he received my communication.

After this "authorized" declaration I shall recur no more to the subject, leaving to the uncalled-for advocates to console themselves for their ill-applied zeal.

Your Private Correspondent

First published in the New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3656, January 4, 1853
Reproduced from the newspaper

Notes

[a] See this volume, pp. 382-83.—Ed.

[b] See this volume, pp. 354-56.— Ed.

Source: Marx and Engels Collected Works, Volume 11 (p.465), Progress Publishers, Moscow 1979
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