Aldridge's friends and admirers in Germany and Prussia were indeed eager to welcome him back, but a notice soon appeared in Ferdinand Roeder's Theater-Moniteur saying, “Ira Aldridge has asked us to announce that due to an illness he will not be able to begin his guest-tour through Germany before the New Year.”

This must have been a great disappointment for Aldridge as well, but during the interval he continued to make preparations for his tour by refurbishing his costumes and props:

Aldridge's illness lasted nearly a month, but eventually a Hamburg paper reported that “According to a wired message the famous African actor Mr Ira Aldridge will arrive here, and he will soon open his interesting guest-performance as ‘Othello’ which he will continue with ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and ‘Macbeth.’” The City Theater in Altona, a suburb of Hamburg, was already preparing for his arrival in a festive manner. Ludwig Dessoir, in a series of comic performances which included a parody of “Ludwig Devrient, or the Actor as Matchmaker” as well as a farce, also featured an amusing recital by Dessoir of “Ira Aldridge as Freier [suitor, or customer of a prostitute].”

However, Aldridge evidently had a relapse, for he remained in London recovering for close to another three months. During his convalescence, he wrote to Octavian Blewitt, secretary of the Royal Literary Fund, seeking financial relief for a friend, J. H. Keane, a London correspondent for a Continental journal who had fallen on hard times. Keane had also been serving as Aldridge's private secretary, handling his communications with theaters abroad, particularly those in Germany and Prussia.