In March 1867, Secretary of State Seward completed negotiations with czarist Russia for the purchase of Alaska, paying $7,200,000 for 586,412 square miles of territory – a diplomatic achievement derided by many as “Seward’s Folly”. It took nine months to convince the House of Representatives to approve the necessary appropriation, a legislative path greased by the Russian ambassador’s “judicious use of funds to buy votes” in Congress. When a Boston newspaper published allegations of financial shenanigans involved in the purchase, the House Committee on Public Expenditures launched “a full investigation”. This rare document recounts the Committee’s grilling of several subpoenaed witnesses, including Seward himself, the Treasurer of the United States, two prestigious Washington lawyers, well paid to act as secret lobbyists for the Russian embassy, and several journalists who had written propaganda supporting what one jokingly called “the Alaska swindle”.. The Committee decided that no definitive proof of “complicity with criminal acts” of bribery could be reached without the cooperation of Russian diplomats who were, of course, unwilling to testify. Several Committee members added their “decided disapproval’ of the American lobbyists who had sold their “extraordinary influence” in Washington, and the “trust and confidence” of their fellow citizens, “to a foreign power”.