Note 4 — REPRESENTATION OF FILIPINAS IN THE SPANISH CORTES

Several general measures enacted by the Cortes touch the Philippines incidentally.4 The first matter, however, specifically connected with the Philippines was the receipt by the Cortes (March 16, 1811) of the report of the governor of the Philippines (dated August 8, 1809) in regard to the French vessel “Mosca,” which had been captured by the parish priest of Batangas (Fray Melchor Fernandez), and the despatches carried on that vessel. The reading on April 26, 1812, of the proposed decree prescribing the manner of holding elections in the regular Cortes to be convened in 1813, aroused lengthy discussion.5 On May 6, Reyes moved that a special form of election be granted for the Philippines because of their distance and the character of their inhabitants. The islands had neither the funds nor the men to send by which equality of representation would be justified, and he requested that it only be declared that they must not send less than two. An amendment offered by the committee on the Constitution proposed that to the instructions regarding the elections in Ultramar be added a clause to meet Reyes’s wishes, but the matter was hotly contested by the American representatives who feared that such a clause might sometime lead to the cutting down of their own representation, and as a consequence the proposal of the committee was not voted on.6