by one, the wind carrying away their ashes; proofs of treachery which arose only from panic, were buried in oblivion. No one but himself ever knew who were the writers of these letters.
The next day he left for Buenos Ayres, on the same errand which had caused his sudden journey after Chacabuco, to concert measures for an expedition to Peru. On the 11th May, again avoiding a triumphal entry, he quietly took up his residence in his own house in the Argentine capital. Again the Argentine Government decreed him a commission as Brigadier-General; again he declined all promotion, but Congress insisted upon giving him a public vote of thanks, and a crowd of Argentine poets celebrated his victory in verse.
San Martin spent the whole of June in consultation with the members of the Lautaro Lodge, upon the means of fitting out a squadron for the Pacific. In July it was resolved that 500,000 dollars should be raised by a loan for that object, and soon afterwards Don Miguel Zañartu was officially received in Buenos Ayres as the representative of Chile.
San Martin then returned to Mendoza and made two attempts to cross the Cordillera, but was driven back by snowstorms, and remained there all the winter, nothing loth, for he found himself much more at home among the simple, bluff-spoken Cuyanos than in the more polished society of Santiago.
About the end of July he received a letter from Pueyrredon telling him not to draw upon the treasury as he had been authorized to do, for it was found impossible to raise the projected loan. San Martin at once sent in his resignation, which caused such consternation in official circles that he was again authorized to draw for the full amount specified. At that time there arrived in Mendoza various remittances of coin from Chile to merchants in Buenos Ayres. San Martin seized this money on the pretext that transit was not safe, which was quite true, and gave the owners drafts on the national treasury in exchange.
