aspired to be the Washington, as Christophe was deemed the Bonaparte, of Hayti. By insinuating the doctrines of equality and republicanism, Pétion succeeded in governing, with but ten thousand mulattoes, a population of more than two hundred thousand blacks.
The administration of Pétion was mild, and he did all that he could for the elevation of the people whom he ruled. He was the patron of education and the arts; and scientific men, for years after his death, spoke his name with reverence. He was highly respected by the representatives of foreign powers, and strangers visiting his republic always mentioned his name in connection with the best cultivated and the most gentlemanly of the people of Hayti. The people of the republic, without distinction of color or sect, regarded Pétion's death as a great national calamity; and this feeling extended even into Christophe's dominion, where the republican president had many warm friends amongst the blacks as well as the mulattoes. Pétion was only forty-eight years of age at his death. He was a man of medium size, handsome, as were nearly all of the men of mixed blood, who took part in the Haytian war. His manners were of the Parisian school, and his early military training gave him a carriage of person that added dignity to his general appearance.
