The Artibonite. Its deputies with those of the North protest secretly against the Constitution

That same evening, after the sitting had been closed, there was great rejoicing at Port-au-Prince. While the population gave itself up to outbursts of enthusiasm, with cries of *Long live the Republic, most of the deputies of the North and the Artibonite, dismayed, were secretly drawing up in a private house the following protest, which they sent to Christophe; it remained unknown to the Assembly.

PROTEST addressed to His Excellency the General-in-Chief of the army of Haiti.

This day, the twenty-seventh of the month of December 1806, Year 3 of the independence of Haiti,

We, the undersigned deputies of the two divisions of the North and of the first of the West to the constituent assembly, convened to frame the constitutional act, met at Port-au-Prince, the place appointed for this task. We would have begun this work as early as the twentieth of last month; General Pétion, commander of the division, objected to us that the deputies of the South had not yet arrived and that we could not make the constitution without the participation of those from every part of the island. To prove to our compatriots our wish to sacrifice everything to the happiness of our country, we had the patience to wait until the eighteenth of this month, the day on which we were told to begin. Not that we failed to show our impatience every day to General Pétion, who put off the opening of the assembly from Monday to Monday and even refused to name the place where the sittings were to be held. When the day at last arrived, what was our astonishment, after the verification of credentials, to find seventy-four mandataries instead of the fifty-six we were to be. From then on, regarding this assembly as illegal, we made that observation, which was rejected by the absolute majority held by the deputies of the divisions of the South and of the second of the West; we were convinced that it would be useless for us to express any wish tending to the good of our country; we reserved to ourselves the right to protest against everything that should be done in the assembly, and to make our protest known only when we should be in a place of safety. Consequently we protest against our signature affixed to the so-called Constitutional act of this day, the fruit of intrigue and ill will, and against everything that shall follow from it until the dissolution of the assembly, as being illegal and contrary to every principle of justice and equity.