Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 51).djvu/71

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1801-1840]
EVENTS OF 1801-1840
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tary officers appointed by the War Department; all the rest (excepting Cavite, Zamboanga, and the Marianas, which also were filled like the foregoing) were classed as alcaldeships, and appointments thereto should be made from the attorney-general's office [Ministerio de Gracia y Justicia]. The Constitution of 1837 was decreed and sanctioned by the Cortes on June 8 of that year; and it was ordained by that body that the provinces of Ultramar should be governed by special laws, a provision reiterated by succeeding constitutions. "From that time Filipinas lost its representation in the Cortes."

On August 4, 1837, arrived at Manila the new governor of the islands, Andrés Garcia Camba, a knight of the Order of Santiago. He had already spent ten years in Filipinas (April, 1825, to March, 1835), and had gone to Spain as the deputy of Manila to the Cortes, an honor twice again conferred upon him. He was received with the utmost enthusiasm, although the Liberals at Manila were irritated by the action of the Cortes in depriving the islands of representation therein; but Camba himself had liberal views, as well as a generous and kindly nature, and gained the good-will of that party. This made trouble for him, however, in another direction. The civil war in Spain aroused there great partisan bitterness, which spread to the colonies; and in Filipinas was a Carlist and reactionary faction, who opposed Camba in every way. "The regular clergy, as a body, were partisans of the Pretender, and not only gave him their sympathy but aided him, as well as the Carlist publications, with their money. The court of Madrid was aware of this attitude of the friars, and had already sharply censured Salazar