"Fellow citizens of the Eastern Department, your efforts as initiators of the struggle against tyranny, your constancy, your sufferings, your heroic sacrifices of all descriptions, your privations, the combat without quarters which you have sustained and continue to sustain against an enemy far superior in armament and discipline, and who displays, for want of the valor which a good cause inspires, all the ferocity which is the attitude of tyranny, have been witnessed by myself, and so will remain eternally present to my heart. You are the vanguard of the soldiers of our liberties. I commend you to the admiration and to the gratitude of the Cubans. Continue your abnegation of self, your discipline, your valor, and your enthusiasm, which will entitle you to that gratitude and that admiration. "Fellow citizens of the Western Department, if it has not been your good fortune to be the first in grasping arms, neither were you among the last in listening to the voice of the fatherland that cried for revolution. Your moral aid and assistance responded from the very outset to the call of your brethren of the Eastern and Central Departments. Many of you hastened to the scene of revolution to share our colors. At this moment, despite the activity displayed by the Spanish Government in your districts, where its resources and the number of its hosts render more difficult the current of the revolution, that same Government trembles before your determined attitude, from the Las Villas to Havana, and from Havana to the western boundary, and your first deeds of arms were the presage to you and the brave and worthy sons of the Eastern and Central Departments of new and decisive triumphs. "Fellow citizens of all the Island: The blood of the patriots who have fallen during the first onset of the struggle has consecrated our aspirations with a glorious baptism. At this moment, when destiny has been pleased to close the mission of him who was your first leader, swear with him by that generous blood, that in order to render fruitful that great sacrifice you will shed your own, to the very last drop, in furtherance of the consummation of our independence, proclaimed in Yara. Swear with me to give up our lives a thousand times over in sustaining the republic proclaimed in Guaimaro. "Fellow citizens, long live our independence. Long live the popular sovereignty! Long live the Cuban Republic! Patria and liberty!" The convention before proceeding to the election of officers of the Republic, drafted and adopted the first Constitution of Free Cuba, as follows: "Article I. The legislative power shall be vested in a House of Representatives. "Article II. To this body shall be delegated an equal representation from each of the four states into which the Island of Cuba shall be divided. "Article III. These states are Oriente, Camaguey, Las Villas and Occidente.