1. The campaign is largely forgotten, but note a first scholarly reference in Rolf Hobson, ‘Prussia, Germany and Maritime Law from Armed Neutrality to Unlimited Submarine Warfare 1780–1917’, in Rolf Hobson and Tom Kristiansen (eds.), Navies in Northern Waters, 1721–2000, London 2004, pp. 97–116, p. 102. For a more detailed account based on archival sources, see Jan Martin Lemnitzer, ‘A Few Burghers in a Little Hanseatic Town – Die Bremer Seerechtskampagne von 1859’, Bremisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 83 (2004), pp. 85–109.
2. Hermann Henrich Meier (1808–98) had been a member of the first national assembly in 1849 (Casino party) and later became a national-liberal member of the Reichstag (1867–71, 1878–87). See Heinrich Best/Wilhelm Wege, Biographisches Handbuch der Abgeordneten der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848–49, Düsseldorf 1996, p. 234.
3. The senator responsible for foreign affairs, Johann Heinrich Smidt, saw no chance of success after his enquiries in London and Washington, Bremen Senate to the Committee for Maritime Law, 9 December 1859, printed in Aegidi and Klauhold, Frei Schiff, p. 61. Smidt (1806–78) officially became Senate Commissioner for Foreign Affairs only in 1874, but attended to the day-to-day operations for Arnold Duckwitz (1802–81), who simultaneously served as President of the Senate. See Tobias C. Bringmann, Handbuch der Diplomatie 1815–1963, Munich 2001, p. 58.
4. Klaus Peter Schröder, Das Alte Reich und seine Städte, Munich 1991; pp. 90–91; Hans Wiedemann, Die Außenpolitik Bremens im Zeitalter der Französischen Revolution 1794–1803, Breme n 1960, pp. 153–161.
5. ‘Eine Aufgabe für den Congress’, Preußische Jahrbücher, Vol. 4, No. 6 (1859), p. 612. The article was published anonymously but a copy of it in the StAB files bears the handwritten annotation ‘Minister-Resident Geffcken’, SAB, 2-R.11 dd, bound volume ‘Die Seerechtskampagne von 1859’.