Pueyrredon, with great difficulty managed to pay these drafts on presentation, but he wrote to San Martin:—
"If you do that again, I am bankrupt, and we are lost."
With these resources and other remittances which followed, San Martin replenished the empty chest of the Army of the Andes with 200,000 dollars, and the situation was saved.
His spare time in Mendoza he filled up by making elaborate calculations concerning the men, arms, and equipment necessary for his projected expedition to Peru, while Pueyrredon and the diplomatic corps were as fully occupied in the construction of a scheme which was to render the expedition unnecessary. It was proposed that a conference of European powers should nominate a sovereign who should unite all the Spanish colonies south of the Equator under his sway. Of this monarchy San Martin and his army was to be the right arm. Of all this San Martin was fully informed, and to the scheme he made no opposition, but went on all the same with his calculations, till he crossed the Andes in October, and on the 29th of that month dismounted at the gate of his palace in Santiago full of hope, for his last letter from Pueyrredon announced the despatch of two vessels of war for service on the Pacific.
Bolívar, victorious in Venezuela and encouraged by the victory of Maipó, was at this time preparing for another passage of the Andes.
Spain in eight years of warfare had sent sixteen expeditions to America, with more than 40,000 veteran troops, had expended seventy-five millions of dollars, and seemed in no way as yet inclined to relinquish the attempt to subdue her rebellious colonies. She had yet 100,000 soldiers and militia in America, and was preparing a fresh expedition of 20,000 men for despatch to the River Plate.
Thus while diplomatists amused themselves and the world with visionary schemes for securing the independence of America, those more nearly interested in the question thought only of settling it by fire and sword.
