Spain. The tax was fairly regularly paid by the English until 1534, when it was abolished by Henry VIII.
PETERWARDEIN (Hung. Petervarad, Serv. Petrovaradin), a royal free town and fortress of Hungary in the county of Syrmia, Croatia-Slavonia; situated on a promontory formed by a loop of the Danube, 62 m. N.W. of Belgrade by rail. Pop. (1900), 5019. It is connected with Neusatz on the opposite bank by a bridge of boats, a railway bridge and a steam ferry. The fortifications consist of the upper fortress, on a lofty serpentine rock rising abruptly from the plain on three sides, and of the lower fortress at the northern base of the rock. The two fortresses can accommodate a garrison of 10,000 men. In the lower fortress is the town, with a military hospital, and an arsenal containing trophies captured from the Turks. Peterwardein, the “Gibraltar of Hungary,” is believed to represent the Roman Acumincum, and received its present name from Peter the Hermit, who here in 1096 marshalled the levies of the first crusade. It was captured by the Turks in 1526 and retained by them for 160 years. In 1716 it witnessed a signal defeat inflicted on the Turks by Prince Eugène. During the revolutionary struggles of 1848–49 the fortress was held by the insurgents for a short time.
PETHERICK, JOHN (1813–1882), Welsh traveller in East Central Africa, was born in Glamorganshire, and adopted the profession of mining engineer. In 1845 he entered the service of Mehemet Ali, and was employed in examining Upper Egypt, Nubia, the Red Sea coast and Kordofan in an unsuccessful search for coal. In 1848 Petherick left the Egyptian service and established himself at El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, as a trader, dealing largely in gum arabic. He was at the same time made British consular agent for the Sudan. In 1853 he removed to Khartum and became an ivory trader. He travelled extensively in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region, then almost unknown, exploring the Jur, Yalo and other affluents of the Ghazal. In 1858 he penetrated to the Niam-Niam country. His additions to the knowledge of natural history were considerable, among his discoveries being the Cobus maria (Mrs Gray’s water buck) and the Balaeniceps rex (white-headed stork). Petherick returned to England in 1859 where he made the acquaintance of J. H. Speke, then arranging for his expedition to discover the source of the Nile. While in England Petherick married, and published an account of his travels. He returned to the Sudan in 1861, accompanied by his wife and with the rank of consul. He was entrusted with a mission by the Royal Geographical Society to convey to Gondokoro relief stores for Captains Speke and Grant. Petherick got boats to Gondokoro in 1862, but Speke and Grant had not arrived. Having arranged for a native force to proceed south to get in touch with the absentees, a task successfully accomplished, Mr and Mrs Petherick undertook another journey in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, making important collections of plants and fishes. They regained Gondokoro (where one of their boats with stores was already stationed) in February 1863, four days after the arrival of Speke and Grant, who had meantime accepted the hospitality of Mr (afterwards Sir) Samuel Baker. The charge that Petherick failed to meet his engagement to those travellers is unsubstantiated. A further charge that Petherick had countenanced and even taken part in the slave trade was subsequently shown to have no foundation (Petherick in fact had endeavoured to stop the traffic), but it led Earl Russell, then secretary for foreign affairs, to abolish the British consulate at Khartum (1864). In 1865 the Pethericks returned to England, and in 1869 published Travels in Central Africa and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries, in which book are set out the details of the Speke controversy. Petherick died in London, on the 15th of July 1882.
PÉTION DE VILLENEUVE, JERÔME (1756–1794), French writer and politician, was the son of a procureur at Chartres. He became an avocat in 1778, and at once began to try to make a name in literature. His first printed work was an essay, Sur les moyens de prévenir l’infanticide, which failed to gain the prize for which it was composed, but pleased Brissot so much that he printed it in vol. vii. of his Bibliothèque philosophique des legislateurs. Pétion’s next works, Les Lois civiles, and Essai sur le mariage, in which he advocated the marriage of priests, confirmed his position as a bold reformer, and when the elections to the States-General took place in 1789 he was elected a deputy to the Tiers État for Chartres. Both in the assembly of the Tiers État and in the Constituent Assembly Pétion showed himself a radical leader. He supported Mirabeau on the 23rd of June, attacked the queen on the 5th of October, and was elected president on the 4th of December 1790. On the 15th of June 1791 he was elected president of the criminal tribunal of Paris. On the 21st of June 1791 he was chosen one of three commissioners appointed to bring back the king from Varennes, and he has left a fatuous account of the journey. After the last meeting of the assembly on the 30th of September 1791 Robespierre and Pétion were made the popular heroes and were crowned by the populace with civic crowns. Pétion received a still further proof of the affection of the Parisians for himself on the 16th of November 1791, when he was elected second mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly. In his mayoralty he exhibited clearly his republican tendency and his hatred of the old monarchy, especially on the 20th of June 1792, when he allowed the mob to overrun the Tuileries and insult the royal family. For neglecting to protect the Tuileries he was suspended from his functions by the Directory of the department of the Seine, but the leaders of the Legislative Assembly felt that Pétion’s cause was theirs, and rescinded the suspension on the 13th of July. On the 3rd of August, at the head of the municipality of Paris, Pétion demanded the dethronement of the king. He was elected to the Convention for Eure-et-Loir and became its first president. L. P. Manuel had the folly to propose that the president of the Assembly should have the same authority as the president of the United States, his proposition was at once rejected, but Pétion got the nickname of “Roi Pétion,” which contributed to his fall. His jealousy of Robespierre allied him to the Girondin party, with which he voted for the king’s death and for the appeal to the people. He was elected in March 1793 to the first Committee of Public Safety; and he attacked Robespierre, who had accused him of having known and having kept secret Dumouriez’s project of treason. His popularity however had waned, and his name was among those of the twenty-two Girondin deputies proscribed on the 2nd of June. Pétion was one of those who escaped to Caen and raised the standard of provincial insurrection against the Convention; and, when the Norman rising failed, he fled with M. E. Guadet, F. A. Buzot, C. J. M. Barbaroux, J. B. Salle and Louvet de Couvrai to the Gironde, where they were sheltered by a wigmaker of Saint Émilion. At last, a month before Robespierre’s fall in June 1794, the escaped deputies felt themselves no longer safe, and deserted their asylum; Louvet found his way to Paris, Salle and Guadet to Bordeaux, where they were soon taken; Barbaroux committed suicide, and the bodies of Pétion and Buzot, who also killed themselves, were found in a field, half eaten by wolves.
See Mémoires inédits de Pétion et mémoires de Buzot et de Barbaroux, accompagnés de notes inédites de Buzot et de nombreux documents inédits sur Barbaroux, Buzot, Brissot, &c., précédés d’une introduction par C. A. Dauban (Paris, 1866); Œuvres de Pétion (3 vols., 1792); F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (Paris, 1882).
PÉTIS DE LA CROIX, FRANÇOIS (1653–1713), French
Orientalist, was born in Paris in 1653. He was son of the
Arabic interpreter of the French court, and inherited this office
at his father’s death in 1695, afterwards transmitting it to his
own son, Alexandre Louis Marie, who also distinguished himself
in Oriental studies. At an early age he was sent by Colbert to
the East; during the ten years he spent in Syria, Persia and
Turkey he mastered Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and also
collected rich materials for future writings. He served a short
time as secretary to the French ambassador in Morocco, and
accompanied as interpreter the French forces sent against
Algiers, contributing to the satisfactory settlement of the treaty
of peace, which was drawn up by himself in Turkish and ratified
in 1684. He conducted the negotiations with Tunis and Tripoli
