The year 1813 had freed Germany from the dominion of a foreign people. Again did the Prussian eagle float over the other side of the Rhine, on the old gates of Cleve. It had made a bloody end to an insupportable bondage. It had united most of the German races in brotherly ties by a new circle of moral interests. It had produced for the first time in German history an immense political result by a powerful development of popular strength. It had entirely altered the position of the nation to their Princes; for, above the interests of dynasties, and the quarrels of rulers, it had given existence to a stronger power which they all feared, honoured, and must win, in order to maintain themselves. It had given a greater aim to the life of every individual, a participation in the whole, political feeling, the highest of earthly interests, a Fatherland, a State for which he learnt to die and by degrees to live. The Prussians did the greater part of the work of this year, which will never be forgotten by the rest of Germany. It would not be becoming in us, the sons of the generation of 1813, to disparage the glorious struggle of our fathers, because they have left us something to do. Almost all who passed through that great time of struggle and self-sacrifice consider the memory of it the greatest possession of their later life, and it encircled the heads of many with a bright glory. And thousands felt what the warm-hearted Arndt expressed, "We can now die at any moment, as we have seen in Germany what is alone worth living for, that men, from a feeling of the eternal, and imperishable, have been able to offer, with the most joyful self-devotion, all their temporalities and their lives as if they were nothing." But in the churches of the country a simple tablet was put up as a memorial to later generations, on which was the iron cross of the Great Time, and the names of those who had fallen. As in these pages it has been attempted to portray, in the words of men who have passed away, a picture of the time in which they lived, so here we will give a record from the year 1813. "Our son George was struck by a ball, at the age of two-and-twenty, on the 2nd of April, at the ever-memorable engagement at Lueneburg. As a volunteer rifleman in the light battalion of the first Pommeranian regiment, he fought, according to the testimony of his brave leader, Herr Major von Borcke, by his side, with courage and determination, and thus, died for his Fatherland, German freedom, national honour, and our beloved King. To lose him so early is hard; but it is comforting to feel that we also have been able to give a son for this great and holy object. We feel deeply the necessity of such a sacrifice. "The Regierungsrath and Ober-Commissarius Haese and his Wife."[59] "Berlin, 9th April, 1813."