[3] Complying with the eighth of the royal instructions received, in 1785 the governor-intendant Hurtado had the General Register of the Province of Chiloé drawn up, in which he compiled census information on the population subject to his obedience in the intendant's office.

Due to his training in engineering, Hurtado was commissioned to prepare reports on the economic and military situation of the archipelago, where in the first stage he expressed himself in favor of the union of Chiloé with Peru over his old link with Chile.

[4] However, in a second stage he began to perceive that dependence on the viceroyalty hindered his administration, and that the best way to govern Chiloé was to convert it into a general captaincy that dealt directly with the Council of the Indies in Spain.

In the letter he says, among other things, that I and my Advisor invaded it, that we intercepted the steps of its jurisdiction, that the Island of Chiloé is not subject to this Captaincy General nor to that of Chile, that according to its title, and instruction that was given, Intendant's Ordinances and subsequent orders that have been addressed to him, that Island is an indifferent overseas Province, which in its Government depends only on His Majesty and the reserved path [...] Intendant Hurtado is in this capital destined to be sent to Spain accompanied by his cause, by Royal Order of May 10, 1789, for the insubordination and excesses committed in his Government and Municipality of the Island of Chiloé [...]Viceroy Croix temporarily appointed Colonel Francisco Garos as governor-intendant to replace Hurtado, whom he ordered to travel to Lima to defend himself from his prosecution.

Garos remained until the end of 1791 when Pedro Cañaveral y Ponce arrived, appointed by the king on June 24, 1789 as political and military governor without the rank of intendant.