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444 Bolívar aspired to the laurel crown of an American Cæsar, Rivadavia to that of a pacific liberator.

Rivadavia was at this time the soul of the Provinces of La Plata, which were separated by political shipwreck. The Argentine Republic, exhausted by her great struggle for the independence of America, and prostrated by civil conflict, took no more part in the continental war, but her soldiers still fought for her in far-off lands; her integral parts, in spite of separation, had still cohesion and sought reunion. A centre of attraction was wanting to this constellation of fourteen wandering stars—Buenos Ayres provided that centre. Rivadavia welded this province into a State, which became the organic cell of national life. On the small theatre of a province, the representative system of a republic was seen for the first time at work in South America. These institutions, which were then a novelty in the world, except in the United States and partially in England, showed to the peoples of South America what the republican system was; from Buenos Ayres they spread over the entire Continent.

The Argentine Republic was then threatened with the war which broke out two years later. The new Empire of Brazil had occupied by force the Banda Oriental, which was one of the United Provinces; the Government of Buenos Ayres, inspired by Rivadavia, faced the question with all its consequences. In these circumstances, in January, 1823, Don Joaquin Mosquera arrived in Buenos Ayres as minister plenipotentiary of Columbia. Rivadavia was provisionally in charge of the Government. He rejected at once the idea of a Congress with power to decide international disputes. The treaty was reduced to a defensive alliance, in support of their independence from Spanish or from any other foreign domination. As Rivadavia explained to the Legislature:—

"The treaty proposed by Columbia did not fulfil the requisite conditions, since it only recognised the existence of governments and not their legitimacy."

The idea of Rivadavia was to complete the triumph of