[174] This exclusion was in accordance with a decision of the committee on Credentials handed in February 11, 1822, to the effect that government employes did not cease, to be such until their resignations were accepted by the government. Posada did not present his credentials at the meeting of February 15, declaring that they had been robbed with his baggage en route from Cádiz to Madrid. He did present them, however, at the next meeting of February 20. At the third and fourth preliminary meetings (February 22 and 24) the matter was debated, and he was excluded on the grounds of being still a government employe.
[175] Foreman states wrongly (p. 362, ed. of 1906) that seventeen deputies were elected and sat during the Cortes of 1820-23, and he names eight of them. He may have confused the names of electors with those of representatives. The four elected (of whom only three are known) were perhaps elected for the districts of the archiepiscopal see and the three suffragan sees of the Philippines; although Montero y Vidal says that both Sáenz de Vizmanos and Posada were elected from Nueva Cáceres.
[176] Although a provincial deputation had been organized in Manila in 1822, almost its only act was to petition (April 12, 1823) for more missionaries.
[177] Fernando's infant daughter, Isabel II, ascended the throne under the regency of her mother María Cristina. Through the efforts of the liberals, six important decrees were passed March 24, 1834: suppression of the Consejo de Estado, during the minority of the queen; suppression of the Consejos de Castilla and de Indias, in whose place was established a Tribunal Superior de España é Indias; suppression of the Consejo Supremo de Guerra, and in its place the establishment of the Tribunal Supremo de Guerra y Marina y de Extranjería; suppression of the Consejo Supremo de Hacienda, replacing it by a Tribunal Supremo de Hacienda; an order to the Secretary of the Despacho de Gracia y Justicia to propose the new organization of the Consejo Real de las Ordenes; and the institution of a Consejo Real de España é Indias to have general supervision of American and Philippine matters.
[178] The first news of reform and the fact that the new Cortes were to be summoned was received unofficially at Manila by a United States ship sailing from Cádiz in June, 1834, and reaching Manila toward the end of the same year.