The Venetian nobleman , the last Venetian "provveditore" of Argostoli, was appointed head of the Senate, and entrusted with the creation of a constitution for the new state. Orio's draft constitution comprised 28 articles and one addendum, and envisaged a thoroughly aristocratic regime, with each island headed by a Great Council composed of the nobles and the upper bourgeoisie. The Great Councils would elected the senators. Each island would retain a local administrative council of six members and a treasury, but a central treasury would exist in Corfu. The Senate was the ultimate executive authority, and its president the head of state. A Small Council of 40 would be elected by the Great Councils of the three largest islands, and would be responsible for justice, the selection of officials, and advising on legislation. Each island's council would have to ratify the laws passed by the Senate. In addition, the use of the Greek language was sanctioned for the first time in the courts. Ushakov also restored the Orthodox Archbishopric of Corfu, which had been abolished in the 13th century by the Angevin rulers of Corfu. On 21 June 1799, the Senate sent a twelve-member delegation to Constantinople and Saint Petersburg, drawn from the upper classes of each island, to express its gratitude to the Sultan and Tsar and secure recognition of the new state's independence. The delegates were also tasked with producing a draft constitution and submitting it for ratification, as well as press for the restoration of the Islands' maritime and land frontier with the withdrawal of Ali Pasha from Butrinto, Preveza, and Vonitsa. The delegation included Orio, nominated as ambassador to St. Petersburg, and the presidency of the Senate passed to Count Spyridon Georgios Theotokis, who had previously headed the Provisional Municipality under French rule. Once in Constantinople, however, the delegation quickly realized that the Porte was not interested in recognizing the Islands' independence, but rather in creating a vassal state under Ottoman suzerainty. Two of the delegates, the Corfiot Count Antonio Maria Capodistrias and the Zakynthian Count Nikolaos Gradenigos Sigouros Desyllas remained in Constantinople to conduct negotiations with the Porte, while Orio and another delegate, Kladas, were to represent the Ionian cause in Saint Petersburg. In the negotiations that followed, the Constantinople delegates were pitted against the Saint Petersburg ones in a correspondence war over the nature of the new polity.