Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire   From your esteemed letter ^[44] I perceive that there is some misapprehension on your part as regards the line we would take in the work we proposed to you for publication. ^[45] We have no intention of defending protective tariffs any more than free trade, but rather of criticising both systems from our own standpoint. Ours is the communist standpoint, which we have advocated in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, the Holy Family, the Rheinische Jahrbücher, etc., and from which, too, my book The Condition of the Working-Class in England is written. As you will appreciate, this altogether precludes the submission of our work to the censor, and hence we cannot agree to the same. Should you, however, desist from this and be otherwise inclined to accept the work, we would beg you to be so good as to let us know before we enter into other commitments.

Yours very truly