Finding all their acts of equivocation and delay ineffectual, the Araucanians flew to arms, and having united to the number of five hundred men under the toqui Curignancu, they proceeded to besiege Cabrito in his camp.  Burgoa, who had been made prisoner and very roughly treated, was set at liberty in consequence of being represented as inimical to the quarter-master.  Rivera crossed the Biobio in sight of the enemy who were seeking to slay him, but he got away in safety under the protection of a missionary, and afterwards returned with four hundred men to relieve Cabrito.  Another missionary requested the Araucanian officer who escorted him, to forgive a Spaniard by whom he had been grievously offended:  The Araucanian answered that he had nothing to fear while in company with the missionary; and that it was now no time to think of revenging private injuries.  Such was the attention paid to the sanctity of the missionaries, that not a single Spaniard was slain who had the good fortune of getting under their protection.

In order to attack the Araucanians in several places at once, the governor formed an alliance with the Pehuenches, who inhabit the western slopes of the Andes between the latitudes of 33 deg. 30’ and 36 deg.  S. and between the heads of the rivers Maypo and Chillan.  They accordingly sent an army through the defiles of the mountains to invade Araucania:  But Curignancu, being informed of their approach, fell upon them by surprise while descending from the Andes and completely routed them, taking their general Coligura and his son, both of whom he put to death.  Though this event might have been supposed calculated to occasion eternal enmity between the Pehuenches and Araucanians, it yet so effectually reconciled them, that the Pehuenches have been ever since faithful allies to the Araucanians, and implacable enemies to the Spaniards.  Even in this war, Curignancu availed himself of the assistance of these mountaineers to harass the Spanish possessions in the neighbourhood of St Jago.  Since that time, the Pehuenches frequently attack the Spanish caravans between Buenos Ayres and Chili, and almost every year furnishes some melancholy events of that kind.

The mortification of seeing his grand project completely overthrown preyed on the mind of Gonzago, already afflicted by a severe chronic illness, which was so much aggravated by this disappointment as to cut him off in the second year of the war; and Don Francisco Xavier de Morales was appointed his successor by the viceroy of Peru.  As formerly concerted, the neutral provinces of Araucania now declared in favour of those who had first begun hostilities, and the war was prosecuted with vigour by the whole confederacy.  Curignancu and his brave vice-toqui Leviantu, kept the Spanish troops in constant motion and alarm, though reinforced by several divisions from Spain.  Having no materials for giving an account of the events of this war, it can only be mentioned that a bloody battle was fought