After a while, however, the negroes were compelled to retreat before the superior discipline of the white troops; and feeling greatly the need of intelligent officers, they insisted upon making Toussaint aide-de-camp to Biassou, under the title of Brigadier. He desired, above all things, that hostilities should cease, that the negroes should return to their work, and that the planters should consent to cease from oppressing them. A very little justice and kindness would have pacified the revolted slaves; but the slaveholders were so full of rage and pride, that if a slave attempted to return to his master, however sincere he might be, he was instantly put to death. Three commissioners came from France to try to negotiate a peace between the contending parties. The blacks sent deputies to the Colonial Assembly to help the French commissioners in this good work; but the planters treated their overtures with haughtiness and contempt. It is said that Toussaint wept when he saw the hopes of peace vanish. It was plain that his people must resist their tyrants, or be forever hopelessly crushed. He was then fifty years old, in the prime of his bodily and mental strength. By becoming a leader he felt that he might protect the ignorant masses, and restrain those who were disposed to cruelty. Perhaps he remembered the prediction of the Abbé Raynal, and thought that he was the appointed deliverer,--a second Moses, sent by God to bring his people out of bondage. From that time henceforth he made it the business of his life to conquer freedom for his race; but never in a bloodthirsty spirit.