414 APPENDIX. 



rewards if they would declare war against us, which they promised to do ; 

 and the Cacique Nicolas (the ally of Buenos Ayres) came with his tribe to 

 Pergamino, from whence he marched with 200 Portenian soldiers to the vil- 

 lage of Melingue, on the confines of Santa Fe. A detachment of ours which 

 garrisoned the town was put to the sword, and all the females and children 

 carried away by the Indians for slaves. The Cacique Nicolas promised to 

 put at the disposition of Rodriguez 7000 Indians ; which force they considered 

 would exterminate us without difficulty. 



Buenos Ayres, with her promised Indian allies, considered herself secure. 

 Their miserable poets all rhymed of our inevitable destruction, and ridiculed 

 in the most reproachful manner the political ideas of Carrera ; whilst those 

 whose abilities did not reach to verse were more mischievously employed, in 

 order to cause a dissension between Carrera and Lopez, by an extensive dis- 

 tribution of their pamphlets : in these pamphlets and papers, which were 

 carefully thrown in our way, they made it appear that Lopez was but a mere 

 cipher, subservient to all the measures of Carrera, without ideas, will, or 

 opinion, of his own. The idea suggested in these papers did not deviate 

 much from truth ; but truth is not always pleasing. Lopez had self-love suf- 

 ficient to make him feel the depth of his inferiority, which was now laid be- 

 fore the public: however, he concealed as much as possible the envy that 

 gnawed his ungenerous heart. 



The Portenos, rightly judging that their scheme might have had some effect 

 on the uncultivated mind of Lopez, sent deputies to San Nicolas to resume 

 the negociation, relative to Lopez giving up Carrera and his officers to the 

 Portenos. Bustos, governor of Cordova, seeing Carrera without force, and 

 forgetting all his obligations, refused to deliver to him 700 Chilenos which 

 existed in his army, and which were to be delivered whenever Carrera would 

 demand them. He also sent deputies to San Nicolas, to co-operate with those 

 of Buenos Ayres in our destruction, having previously had his government 

 acknowledged as legal by Buenos Ayres. 



The regiment No. 1. in San Juan, which had been given to Carrera by 

 Mendizabal, governor of that province, had been led by its colonel to attack 

 Mendoza without any orders from Carrera, who had only directed that they 

 should act on the defensive in San Juan in case of being attacked. Corro, 

 who commanded that regiment, knew them to be as good soldiers as any in 

 America, and put all his confidence in their courage, without consulting his 

 own capacity for conducting such an enterprise. He marched with his in- 



