On 9 July 1817 (the first anniversary of the signing of the Argentine Declaration of Independence) Bouchard set out from Ensenada de Barragán in command of "La Argentina" on a two-year voyage, intending to travel across the Atlantic to the African coast in order to circumnavigate around the Cape of Good Hope and engage a fleet of ships operated by the Company of the Philippines that had sailed from Spain to India. However, a fire broke out on 19 July which the crew had to fight for hours until it was extinguished. Consequently, when the ship subsequently arrived in the Indian Ocean it headed northeast to Madagascar, where it laid up at Tamatave (on the east of the island) for a period of two months while repairs were effected. Once in Tamatave, a British officer requested Bouchard's assistance in preventing four slaver ships (three British and one French) from leaving the island, whereupon Bouchard offered the use of all his available troops. The "La Argentina" seized the slavers' food supplies and recruited five French sailors prior to departing Madagascar with the intent of launching attacks on the Spanish merchant vessels that sailed in the region. Much of the crew was soon afflicted with scurvy, which required that ship's operations be conducted by those few sailors who had escaped illness. On 18 October "La Argentina" encountered an American frigate that passed on the news that the Company of the Philippines had ended trade with India three years prior.