Among the half million blacks there must be one—and more than one—who could redeem his race; to whom the outcast and despairing might look, and take courage, and say, “Such as he is, I may try to be.” This man was longed for—consciously or not, the blacks yearned for their king, could they but see him. The presentiment existed, for had not the Abbé Raynal long before predicted a vindicator for the race? No man can save another, and no nation. Each race must look for its salvation and its leaders in its own comprehensive soul. The Moses who will lead the blacks out of bondage must be a black! and he will come. Let us go back for a moment. On the arrival of the first commissioners, Mirbeck, Roume and St. Leger,[26] the mulattoes in the West were in arms under Rigaud—the blacks in the North under Jean François and Biassou. They were a ragged crowd—pikes, muskets, cane knives, axes, whatever the hand could find, were their arms, and they fought without order or discipline, inspired by revenge and hatred to slavery. Jean François, if vain and ostentatious, was sagacious and full of resource. Biassou was bold, fiery, and vindictive. The blacks had slaughtered and been slaughtered—hanged and been hanged—plundered and been plundered. There seemed no end to it and no object. They heard that the Commissioners were placable, so they wished to make terms. But who would dare to venture among the whites? We’re not all outcasts, hunted beasts—fugitive slaves. Raynal and Duplessis (mulattoes) at last took the hazard. The Governor sent them to the Commissioners, they to the Colonial Assembly. The Assembly that day was in an exalted state—it emulated the gods. It replied loftily:—“Emissaries of the revolted negroes, the Assembly established on the law and by the law cannot correspond with people armed against the law. The Assembly might extend grace to guilty men, if, being repentant, etc., etc.,” and Raynal and Duplessis were ordered sharply to “withdraw!” They did withdraw, amid the hootings of the mob. They returned to Grande Rivière. The army and the people came out to meet them wishing peace—they told their story and peace was turned to war, love to hatred. Biassou, in a rage, ordered all the white prisoners in the camp to be put to death. “Death to the whites” went along the lines and among the people. The insane pride of the whites worked its own punishment, and now a hundred more were to be slaughtered. No white was there to save them, and no God to wrest them away. Then a man, black as Dr. Pennington, indifferent in person, unpleasing of visage, meanly dressed, makes his way among the crowd to Biassou swelling with rage; he speaks to him a few words, quietly, calmly; they are to the purpose. The General’s face is composed; he listens, he countermands his orders, and the whites are saved.[27] The negro who saves them is Toussaint Breda, afterward called Louverture.