Government was to send for San Martin to come to Buenos Ayres, to consult on the measures to be adopted in view of the threatened expedition from Spain. San Martin was himself full of apprehension, but without consulting his own Government, he proposed to O'Higgins that the Chilian squadron, under Cochrane, and in the pay of the Argentine Government, should sail to meet the expedition on the Atlantic and destroy it in the open sea, offering to pay at once 50,000 dollars towards the expenses.
This scheme would, he thought, have great attraction for the enterprising spirit of the Admiral, but Cochrane, bent upon destroying the Spanish fleet at Callao, would not listen to it until the business in hand was accomplished, when there would, he said, be ample time yet to meet the new fleet on the Atlantic and blow them to pieces with his Congreve rockets.
In answer to a second letter from Rondeau in August. San Martin offered to march with 4,000 men, of whom 3,000 would be cavalry, to drive the Spaniards into the river, as he had done before at San Lorenzo; "with sixteen squadrons and thirty light field pieces we can be sure of victory."
In October news was received in Buenos Ayres that O'Donnell had rebelled against the Spanish Government, and had marched with the army of Cadiz upon Madrid. This news was false, but it had the effect of causing Rondeau to countermand the orders for the concentration of the army.
Meantime the truce between the central Government and the Gaucho chieftains of the interior had come to an end, Ramirez from Entre Rios, and Artigas from the Banda Oriental, had joined hands with Lopez of Santa Fé, and war had again broken out on the northern frontier of Buenos Ayres. For the third time Government looked to San Martin for help, and ordered him to Buenos Ayres, with the division quartered at Mendoza. Just at the same
