History of Hayti.                     19
to the 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, but
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-
f drew to the Cape, which became the capital of the State of
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 ?fere 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 Pétion found amongst the subjects of the
King. At length, being unajsle, 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,
Pétion 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, Pétion
put into execution an idea which he had long before conceived.