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 PETHERICK DE VILLENEUVE 361 At the foot of the rock is the lower fortress, which contains the town proper. The two fortresses hold 10,000 soldiers. Under the Romans it was known as Acumincmn. The present name is derived from Peter the Her- mit, who is said to have marshalled here his followers in the first crusade. Prince Eugene achieved at Peter wardein a decisive victory over the Turks, Aug. 5, 1716. The Hungarians held out bravely here in 1848-' 9 until after the surrender of Gorgey and of Arad. PETHERICK, John, a British traveller in Af- rica. In 1845 he went to Egypt, entered the service of Mehemet Ali as mining engineer, and in January, 1847, was sent to Kordofan. He spent several years in the region of the upper Nile, but on the death of Mehemet Ali he resigned his employment and became a mer- chant at Khartoom, where he was made Brit- ish consul. In 1859 he went to England, and published "Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa, with Explorations from Khartoom on the White Nile to the Regions of the Equa- tor" (London, 1861). PETIGRU, James Louis, an American lawyer, born in Abbeville district, S. C., about 1789, died in Charleston, S. C., March 9, 1863. He graduated at the South Carolina college in 1809, a few years later was admitted to the bar, and practised in the rural districts, and subsequently in Charleston. From 1822 to 1830 he was attorney general of the state. During the nullification troubles of 1830-'32 he was one of the leaders of the " union and state rights " party, and on the defeat of his party, from having been one of the most pop- ular men in the state, he became very unpopu- lar. He nevertheless held the respect of the community, and maintained his position as a leader at the bar. Subsequently he was for a brief period district attorney of the United States, at a time when such a position sub- jected him to public odium. Still later he served in the state legislature, and in 1861 was a commissioner for codifying the laws and statutes of South Carolina. He opposed al- most alone the secession movement in South Carolina in 1860, and adhered to his union principles till his death. He was president of the South Carolina historical society, and pub- lished a " Semi-Centennial Oration " delivered at the South Carolina college (1855), and an " Address before the South Carolina Historical Society" (1858). His biography has been written by W. j. Grayson (12mo, 1866). PETION^ ANNE ALEXANDRE SABES), first pres- ident of the republic of Hayti, born in Port- au-Prince, April 2, 1770, died there, March 29, 1818. His father was Pascal Sabes, a wealthy colonist, and his mother a free, mulatto. He studied at the military academy of Paris, served in the French and afterward in the Haytian army, and when the revolution broke out in his native island rendered valuable service to Toussaint and Dessalines as an engineer, and was rapidly advanced. He did much to pro- tect the colonists in that time of terror. When Toussaint began his proscription of the whites and mulattoes, Petion took up arms to resist him, and maintained the conflict, with very unequal forces, until compelled to seek refuge in France. He returned from exile as a col- onel in the army sent under Gen. Leclerc to subject Hayti anew to her former masters; but the retaliatory cruelties committed by that commander, and the reestablishment of sla- very, gave the signal for revolt (1802). Petion placed himself under the orders of Dessalines, and they once more proclaimed the indepen- dence of Hayti (1804). Having succeeded Gen. Clervaux in the government of Port-au-Prince and the command of the mulattoes, Petion held that post at the time of the assassination of the negro emperor (October, 1806). In the dissolution of the government which ensued, the mulattoes rallied round Petion, whom they preferred, as one of their own caste, to Chris- tophe, the leader of the blacks. Petion was elected in 1807 president of the southern and western parts of the island ; an office which was afterward conferred upon him in perpe- tuity, with the right of nominating his succes- sor. Christophe believing himself entitled to undivided authority, the rivals took up arms, and for several years carried on a war in which the advantage seems to have been on the side of Christophe, who on one occasion defeated Petion in a pitched battle, and pursued him to Port-au-Prince. At length the chieftains agreed, without entering into any formal trea- ty, to suspend hostilities, and leave each other undisturbed. A strip of waste country, 10 m. wide, was made the neutral boundary. Petion now applied himself zealously to the improve- ment of his subjects. With absolute power he preserved the utmost republican simplicity. Property was equitably divided, without re- spect to distinctions of color ; great attention was paid to public instruction ; and the gene- ral forms of administration were copied from French models. But an insurmountable bar- rier was the character of the recently emanci- pated blacks who formed the majority of his subjects. The finances of the country fell into irretrievable disorder ; onerous imposts upon commerce were resorted to, and the govern- ment was compelled to debase the coinage. The army was a mere rabble. Petion fell into a state of hypochondria, refused all medicines and nourishment, and, after designating Gen. Boyer as his successor, died of mere inanition and despondency. His body now rests in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Paris. PETION (or Pethion) DE VILLENEUVE, Jerome, a French revolutionist, born in Chartres in 1753, died near St. Emilion, Gironde, in June, 1794. He was a lawyer at Chartres, and in 1789 was elected deputy to the states general. In 1790 he was chosen president of the assem- bly. He was a bitter enemy of the court and of Mirabeau, and was one of the three com- .missioners who after the flight of the royal