History of Hayti. 
to tlie Cape. This time a more liberal compact was adopted, in 
imitation of the Constitution of the United States. Christophe 
was called to the presidency of the Republic of Hayti, hut 
the form of the new government being contrary to his wishes, 
he refused to accept its conditions, and began a fratricidal war, 
which lasted till his death. 
Having failed in his attempt to seize Port-au-Prince, he with- 
? drew to the Cape, which became the capital of the State ox 
Hayti, and on the 2d of June, 1811, he caused himself to be 
crowned King. Endowed with talent for organization, but of a 
nature both despotic and cruel, he was unsuccessful in founding 
anything durable, for his artificial creations were unsupported 
by the aspirations of a free people. His attempts against the 
Republic, less powerful than his own State, failed on account of 
the secret support that Petion found amongst the subjects of the 
King. At length, being unable, in consequence of an attack 
of paralysis, to mount his horse, when on the point of starting 
to repress a sedition, he blew out his brains on the 8th of Octo¬ 
ber, 1820, in his palace of Sans Souci. 
After the refusal of the presidency by Christophe in 1806, 
Petion was named in his stead. An able statesman and a 
sincere republican, he had, during the whole course of his life, 
to struggle against men infinitely inferior to him in talent. 
Betrayed by his companions in arms, little understood even by 
men of note, he overcame by his address all the obstacles which 
appeared ready to crush him. His war against Christophe was 
his principal difficulty, but the secession of the Department of 
the South, which was, for a time, erected into an independent 
State under Rigaud, added, also, greatly to his embarrassments. 
This famous chief of the first wars of the Revolution, compro¬ 
mised his past glory in lending himself, at Cayes, to a division 
which might have proved fatal to the Republic. 
After having reannexed the South, at the death of Rigaud, 
and repulsed an attack he sustained from Christophe, Petion 
put into execution an idea which he had long before conceived. 
