In 1877 a law was passed for regulating the management of the State domains, for selling them or leasing them for nine years. A longer lease would require a special authorisation of the Legislature. This last clause is principally aimed at foreigners, whom the Haytians desire to keep away from all interest in land. The national estates lie in different parts of the country, and the extent of them in the aggregate is but imperfectly known, owing to careless administration. According to an official return published in 1877, there were under lease 2105 farms of national land, containing about 230,000 acres, let on an average at the rate of two shillings per acre. The laws on the tenure of real estate are, with some modifications, the same as the agrarian laws that were framed by the French during their possession of the country, and are remarkable for that minute accuracy and definition of right which characterise French laws in general. For the better elucidation of the subject a few retrospective notices are necessary. Going back to 1804, the year of independence, one of the first acts of Dessalines was to create a national domain out of the following elements:-- All the real estate which constituted the State domains during the French period. All the real estates of the whites which had not been legally transferred. All land without owners. Confiscated lands. In furtherance of his project to get the best part of the land into the hands of Government, Dessalines is accused of resorting to every kind of arbitrary and cruel act, and did not even disdain to encourage forgery in order to dispossess those proprietors who stood firm to their rights. This attack on private property was one of the main causes of the successful plot against his life. Of the national estate thus formed a great part was subsequently parcelled out by Pétion in donations to those who had deserved well in the war of independence, whilst other lots were sold in fee-simple.