The Senate reopens its sessions under Manigat and names Bonnet its titular president; Pétion and the troops attend the ceremonies of the new year.

On 1 January 1808 the Senate reopened its sessions under the presidency of the virtuous Manigat. The counting of the ballots gave Bonnet the titular presidency. Daumec and Pelage-Varein were named secretaries.

This day was the fourth anniversary of the festival of Independence, which Christophe had prevented from being celebrated the year before, by enveloping, through the most odious of outrages, the national palm tree in the funereal crape of civil war.

All the troops stood assembled under arms, no longer as on 1 January 1807 to shed, alas! generous blood in fratricidal struggles; this time they came to prostrate themselves at the foot of the altar of the fatherland, in the shade of the tree of liberty, and to beseech heaven to watch over the destinies of the Republic.

Pétion, surrounded by the military authorities, repaired to the Senate as soon as he had learned of its meeting. Everywhere on his passage he was saluted with that respectful cordiality which he inspired in all, and which was increased still more by the laudable modesty with which he came to subordinate himself to the sovereignty of the people, of which the Senate was the representative.

The Assembly, immediately behind which walked the President of Haiti with his staff, betook itself to the Champ-de-Mars, passing through the midst of the double hedge formed by the elite companies of the garrison.

The President of the Senate and the President of Haiti each pronounced a discourse suited to the solemnity. They swore, with the army and the people, “to renounce France forever and to die sooner than live under its domination.”

The sound of the cannon followed this oath, which every year we still renew.