The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 51]

1801-1840o]

EVENTS OF 1801 -1840

31

bond Indians; afterward it spread to many of the
Ilocans, who resented the government monopoly of
wine and prohibition of native manufacture of basi
(a liquor produced by the fermentation of the juice
of sugar cane). This revolt was put down without
much difficulty, and the leaders were hanged at Manila; much was accomplished by the Augustinian
fathers of Ilocos in restoring peace. In February,
i809, the news arrived at Manila of the French invasion of Spain, and the captivity of Fernando VII;
the Manila authorities promptly declared their loyalty to that monarch. Somewhat later a French
schooner of war was captured off the coast of Batangas, and the French authorities at Isle de France
endeavored to persuade those at Manila that England, not France, was the enemy of Spain, and that
the people of Filipinas ought to support the French
interests. Folgueras answered, refusing to accept any
such propositions, and would do no more than to
return the French prisoners from the captured vessel.
On March 4, I8Io, the new proprietary governor
Manuel Gonzalez Aguilar, assumed his office. On
February 14 preceding, a decree had been issued by
the Spanish government granting to all the colonies
in America and to Filipinas representation in the
Spanish Cortes by deputies chosen by the various
capital cities. The sessions of this Cortes began on
September 24, 18IO, and Filipinas was represented
therein by acting deputies; afterward, one was duly
chosen (Ventura de los Reyes) by the municipality
of Manila, according to the forms required. " In
the jurisdiction of each village in the Philippine
4See post, near the end of this volume, the document on the
representation of Filipinas in the Spanish Cortes.