Further, the Chilian envoy Irizarri, passing through Buenos Ayres on his way to England, there signed a treaty of alliance with the Argentine Government:—"To put an end to Spanish domination in Peru by means of a combined expedition."
In June, 1818, Bolivar stretched out the right hand of fellowship to the Argentine people by an official letter to the Government, and by a proclamation to "the inhabitants of the River Plate," in which he sets forth his favourite policy of a union of all the peoples of South America. Some months later on O'Higgins wrote to Bolívar, proposing to him an alliance based upon the continental ideas of San Martin.
San Martin had written from Mendoza to the Government of Chile and to Balcarce, informing them of his plans for the expedition to Peru, giving three months for collecting the necessary supplies. When he reached Santiago nothing had been done, and the revenues were mortgaged for months to come. He then wrote to the Argentine Government, giving a most miserable account of the financial state of Chile, and the consequent inefficiency of the Army of the Andes, which he suggested should be withdrawn from Chile as the projected expedition was for the time impossible. He also wrote to the Government of Chile, expressing his fears of the speedy dissolution of the united army, and proposed that a part of it should be employed in desultory attacks on the coasts of Peru, while he himself resigned the command.
On receiving no satisfactory reply, he concentrated the Army of the Andes at the upper part of the valley of Aconcagua, crossed over himself with a small detachment to Mendoza, and was soon after followed by a division of 1,200 men, by which operation he brought pressure to bear on the Chilian Government by leaving them to their own resources, while he recruited his cavalry in their own country, and preserved Cuyo from being drawn into the vortex of anarchy which at that time desolated the United
