This spirit continued until the early quarter of the nineteenth century, when Professor Frederick List roused the attention of his countrymen, and notably that of Bismarck, to the necessity of an independent national existence and a national economic policy. In 1836 a committee recommended naval coast protection, but it was not until 1848, when Denmark blockaded the German coast, that anything was done to provide for it. In that year the National Assembly of delegates from various German Diets, which met at Frankfort, voted for the marine a million sterling to be levied on the German States, but only one-half of the money could be collected. Still, three steam frigates, one large and six small steam corvettes, and two sailing corvettes were got together, but in 1852, owing to the poverty of the States, two of the ships were sold to Prussia for £60,000 and the rest disposed of by auction at less than a fourth of their value. The officers and men were disbanded with a year's pay. To this humiliating state of things Bismarck refers in his "Gedanken und Erinnerungen." "The German fleet," he writes, "and Kiel harbour as a foundation for its institution, were from 1848 on one of the most burning thoughts at whose fire German aspirations for unity were accustomed to warm themselves and to concentrate. Meanwhile, however, the hatred of my parliamentary opponents was stronger than the interest for a German fleet, and it seemed to me that the Progressive party at that time preferred to see the newly-acquired rights of Prussia to Kiel, and the prospect of a maritime future founded on its possession, rather in the hands of the auctioneer, Hannibal Fischer, than in those of a Bismarck Ministry." From this on naval development in Prussia was slow; there was no interest for a marine either among the governing classes or the people; but it was not wholly neglected, for Wilhelmshaven was acquired from the Duchy of Oldenburg, a small fleet was sent to the Orient with a view to obtaining commercial treaties and concessions, and a sum of £320,000 was devoted annually to naval requirements. During the Danish War of 1864 a fleet of three screw corvettes, two paddle steamers, and a few gunboats was considered sufficient to protect the coasts and make a blockade impossible.