Note 3 — REPRESENTATION OF FILIPINAS IN THE SPANISH CORTES

With Fernando virtually a prisoner in France (where he remained for five years), the nationalists in Spain being without a ruler, since they refused to consider Joseph Bonaparte as king, organized a provisional government known as the central governing assembly (Junta central), with headquarters in the south. This Junta, taking the necessary steps for the reorganization of government, and the calling of a Cortes, proceeded, on June 25, 1809, to rehabilitate the old Consejo de España, and on January 29, 1810, to constitute the supreme Consejo de Regencia. The delegates to the first session of the Cortes, for which final orders were issued by decree of June 18, 1810, and in which, by a decree of January 22, 1829, all the Spanish domain was to have equality of representation, assembled on the island of León during the month of August, 1810. On account of the distance of the American countries and the Philippines and the impossibility of regularly-appointed delegates reaching Spain in time for the opening of the session, substitutes were chosen from residents of those countries then in the Peninsula. Consequently, at the opening of the Cortes, September 24, 1810, the Philippines were represented by Pedro Pérez de Tagle, an officer in the corps of the Spanish Royal Guards, and Dr. José Manuel Couto, prebend of La Puebla. The election at Manila (held by order of the Regency, February 14, 1810), resulted in the choice of Ventura de los Reyes, a wealthy merchant of Manila, and on the whole an active representative, who, despite his seventy years, set out immediately for Cádiz. The two substitutes above mentioned took but little part in affairs.3