Saturday, October 25, 2014

Today in the Sobel Timeline: October 25

On the afternoon of October 25, 1777, victorious British General John Burgoyne offered surrender terms to General Horatio Gates of the Continental Army. Gates' men would be allowed to return to their homes unmolested, and Gates himself would be free to leave the battlefield and return to his Virginia plantation, provided that he pledged never again to take up arms against the British Crown. Gates accepted Burgoyne's terms, and both he and his army retired from the field, leaving the British in possession of the Hudson valley.

On the morning of October 25, 1897, Kramer Associates President Diego Cortez y Catalán met with Mexican Chief of State Benito Hermión to discuss the memorandum he had received from Russian Foreign Minister Prince Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirsky. The two men met a second time that evening. Although no record of the meetings was made, Cortez apparently wanted Hermión to send a strongly-worded note to Sviatopolk-Mirsky demanding that K.A.'s rights in the Yukon be respected. However, Hermión was planning to expand into the Caribbean, and he had no interest in what he called "the frozen wastes of the north." As a result, Cortez was unable to get a commitment from Hermión to confront the Russian government.

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