20 
History of Hayti. 
He had understood, with his great sagacity, that, in order to 
settle the new society, it was necessary to attach to the soil, by 
ties of a nature agreeable to the existing institutions, those men 
who, for twenty years, as soldiers and civil officers, had served 
their country with devotion. He gave them, gratuitously, large 
quantities of land, and nearly all the territorial grants are dated 
from his time. 
One of the objects of Petion’s attention was the Revision of 
the Constitution. In Hayti, the same fault had been committed 
as at Philadelphia; in presence of the Executive there had been 
created a Senate, invested with all the legislative power, as well 
as with some executive privileges. But with men less enlight¬ 
ened and less disciplined, the inconveniences of the system 
were still more disastrous. Profiting by acquired experience, 
Petion demanded the Revision of the Constitution of 1806, 
and this was done at Grand Goave, with all the legal forms, in 
the year 1816. This act, in its principal outline, was the result 
of an amalgamation of the American Constitution with the 
Constitution of the Year 8 of the French Republic. 
Petion died shortly after, worn out by twenty-five years 
of continual struggles. Posterity has been more just towards 
him than his contemporaries, and has placed him with reason at 
the head of the statesmen of his country. 
General Boyer succeeded to the Presidency. He had the 
glory of repressing in the South the insurrection of a partisan 
chief, whom Petion had never succeeded in subduing; of unit¬ 
ing, at the death of Christophe, the north of the Island to the 
Republic, and of effecting the annexation of the old Spanish 
Part to FIs dominions. Under his government of twenty-five 
years, the administration was put upon a better footing in all 
its branches, and the independence of the country recognized 
by the principal European Powers. But from the date of his 
treaty with France, in 1825, his vigor and activity were seen to 
diminish.* A kind of general languor spread over the Govern- 
* Mr. Elie here refers to the Treaty, hy which President Boyer agreed to pay 
