Shortly after this, however, the tables were turned upon the Spaniards. An able stroke of diplomacy on the part of the famous Argentine, Belgrano, supported by British influence, resulted in a treaty with the Portuguese. Thus the Royalists, hoist by a second edition of their own petard, lay without allies at the mercy of the patriot forces. Preparations for a fresh siege of Montevideo were at once begun. Don Manuel Sarratea, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Army, marched to the Entre Rios shore to join his columns with those of Artigas. The inevitable jealousies between the Argentine and Oriental leaders came to a head almost immediately. Apart from a deep personal antagonism that separated the pair, a yet more potent reason made the rupture inevitable. Sarratea, representing the triumvirate of Buenos Aires, was determined to deal with Uruguay as a province of the new Republic of Argentina. Artigas, on the other hand, although willing to acknowledge the authority at Buenos Aires from a federal point of view, insisted upon the independence of the State. It was in these circumstances that Sarratea descended upon Artigas's mixed camp of soldiers and Uruguayan emigrant families upon the banks of the Uruguay. The results of the meeting were soon evident. Artigas, complaining bitterly that Sarratea had seduced from his allegiance not only his troops but the civilian elements of the settlement, resigned his colonelcy, and separated his division from the Argentine forces. The troops now remaining to him numbered rather less than a thousand men, under the command of Otorgués, Rivera, and Manuel Artigas. In the meanwhile Sarratea, anxious that the credit for the capture of Montevideo should fall to his lot, had dispatched a force under Rondeau to lay siege once again to the town of contention that represented the headquarters of the Royalists. Arriving at the spot, he found that his task had already been forestalled to a certain extent by an independent Oriental, José Eugenio Culta. The latter _caudillo_, spurred onwards by the numerous examples of reckless initiative offered by the period, had collected a band of three hundred Gauchos. With these kindred spirits he was busily occupied in harassing the garrison to no little purpose.