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. [155]
Several general measures enacted by the Cortes touch the Philippines incidentally. [156] 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. [157] 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. [158]