Francisco Gil de Taboada

[1] After his viceregal service he returned to Spain, where he became a member of the governing junta after King Ferdinand VII was forced to abdicate by Napoleon.

[2] On February 17, 1779 he was named captain of the recently created Company of Naval Cadets of the Department of Ferrol.

He remained in this position until he was appointed viceroy and captain general of New Granada and president of the Audiencia of Santa Fe de Bogotá by Antonio Valdez, minister of the Indies (1788).

In addition to being a career naval officer who had fought in Algeria, Normandy, Gibraltar and Sicily, Gil de Taboada was also a man of letters.

There he was subject to a juicio de residencia (grievance tribunal) to investigate the state of the colonial finances during his administration.

On February 6, 1805, upon the appointment of General Domingo Grandallana as commander of the squadron at el Ferrol, Gil de Taboada was named interim secretary of state and of the navy.

On March 17, 1808 the Mutiny of Aranjuez forced Charles to abdicate and turn over the government to his son, Ferdinand VII.

They arrived in Bayonne, where Napoleon forced them to abdicate and claimed the Spanish crown, which he gave to his brother Joseph I of Naples.

When Joachim Murat demanded that Godoy (held in the Castle of Villaviciosa since his deposition) be turned over to the French, Gil strongly opposed the suggestion.

When Gil de Taboada died the following year, the French garrison of Madrid accorded him the funeral honors of a man of high dignity.