On that day in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward signed an agreement to retake Alaska, an agreement derided by some as “Seward`s madness” and rejected in the House of Representatives. The agreement was signed in Washington on March 18 (30) 1867. It was written in English and French. As part of the agreement, the United States received the entire Alaska Peninsula, the Alexander and Kadyak archipelagos, the Islands of the Aleutenkamm Ridge, and some islands of Bering Lake. The total area of the territory sold was about 1 million 519 thousand square meters. During the winter of 1859/1860, de Stoeckl held meetings with American officials, although he was ordered not to initiate discussions on the sale of the rac assets. De Stoeckl communicated primarily with Deputy Secretary of State John Appleton and California Senator William M. Gwin and expressed American interest in acquiring Russian America.