A fortnight after Brommy's one exploit as a German naval commander, the remnant of the National Assembly was dispersed by military force at Stuttgart, where it had taken refuge, and Germany relapsed into the condition of a loosely-jointed federation of mutually jealous and suspicious Princes, whose rival claims had to be settled on the battlefield before the great work of unification could be accomplished. The infant navy, which had been the work of a popular movement and a popular Parliament, proved a source of dissension and embarrassment to the Confederacy Governments. Several of the inland states were altogether opposed to the idea that Germany needed a navy. A strong party advocated that one fleet should be provided by Austria for the Adriatic, a second by Prussia for the Baltic, and a third by the remaining German states for the North Sea. The last point of this project was the subject of special negotiations, and at one time there seemed some chance of Hanover assuming the office of "Federal Admiral." In the end, however, divergent interests and irreconcilable rivalries produced the only possible result, and, in February, 1852, the Confederated Governments decided to cut the Gordian knot. The promising German Navy was dissolved, Admiral Brommy received his discharge (he was subsequently employed for some time as Chief of the Technical Department of the Austrian Admiralty), and an Oldenburg official, whose unforgettable name has helped to brand his memory with the whole infamy of a transaction for which he was in nowise responsible, was appointed "Commissioner of the Germanic Confederation charged with the regulation of naval affairs." This, at least, is the designation appended to his signature on the advertisement which, in the German, English, and French languages, announced to all the world that the German Navy was forthwith to be knocked down to the highest bidder. It was the form rather than the fact of the sale which was taken so ill in Privy Councillor Hannibal Fischer, but it is difficult to see what else he could have done. He made efforts to dispose of the ships by private treaty, and actually sold some of them to Prussia and others to English firms, but a residue remained for which no purchaser could be found in this way, and there was nothing for it but to put them up to public auction. There thus came under the hammer two steam frigates, six steam corvettes, a sailing frigate, and twenty-seven gunboats propelled by oars. Of the eight steamers three had been built at Bristol, and one each at Glasgow, Leith, New York, Hamburg, and Bremen. Except in the case of the American vessel, the engines were all of British make.