However, on the 8th of May, 1852, Bunsen had to sign that very piece of iniquity. It was done, machine like, at the King’s command; yet, if Bunsen had followed his own better judgment, he would not have signed, but sent in his resignation. “The first cannon-shot in Europe,” he used to say, “will tear this Pragmatic Sanction to tatters;” and so it was; but alas! he did not live to see the Nemesis of that iniquity. One thing, however, is certain, that the humiliation inflicted on Prussia by that protocol was never forgotten by one brave soldier, who, though not allowed at that time to draw his royal sword, has ever since been working at the reform of Prussia’s army, till on the field of Sadowa the disgrace of the London protocol and the disgrace of Olmütz were wiped out together, and German questions can no longer be settled by the Great Powers of Europe, “with or without the consent of Prussia.” Bunsen remained in England two years longer, full of literary work, delighted by the success of Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition, entering heartily into all that interested and agitated English society, but nevertheless carrying in his breast a heavy heart. Prussia and Germany were not what he wished them to be. At last the complications that led to the Crimean War held out to his mind a last prospect of rescuing Prussia from her Russian thralldom. If Prussia could have been brought over to join England and France, the unity of Northern Germany might have been her reward, as the unity of Italy was the reward of Cavour’s alliance with the Western Powers. Bunsen used all his influence to bring this about, but he used it in vain, and in April, 1854, he succumbed, and his resignation was accepted. Now, at last, Bunsen was free. He writes to a son:— “You know how I struggled, almost desperately, to retire from public employment in 1850. Now the cord is broken, and the bird is free. The Lord be praised!”