84 a ura or






 CHAPTER IV.

 Family. birth, and educat on of Tousialnt L'Ouverture- His promotions
 servitude His marriage- Read Raynal, and begins to think himae
 the providentially-appointed liberator of his oppressed brethren.

 N the midst of these conflicting passions and threatening d
 I orders, there was a character quietly Ifrming, with was
 do more than all others, first to gain the nastery of them, and
 then to conduct them to issues of a favorable, nature. Thit
 superior mind gathered its strength and matured its purpose!
 in a class of Haytian society where leant of all ordinary me9
 would have looked for it. Who could suppose that the liberate
 of the slaves of Hayti, and the great type and pattern ol negrO
 excellence, existed and toiled in one of the deipied gangs that
 pined away on the plantations of the island ?
 The appearance of a hero of negro blood was ardently to be
 wished, as affording the best pro of o negro i apability. By
 what other than a negro hand could it h: expected that the
 blow would be struck which -oiould show to the world that
 Afrirans could not only unjioy but :pain personal andl -.ocial free&
 dom? To the more deep-:ightr.l. thte .progre-4 of elenta and
 the inevitable tendencies of sroiety had darkly indli.ated the
 coming of a negro liberator. The presentiment fuundl .ixpre-
 sion in the works of the Abbe Raynal, who predirited that I
 vindicator of negro wrongs would erelong arise out of the
 bosom of the negro race. That prediction had its lulfilment in
 Toussaint L'Ouverture.
 Toussaint was a negro. We wish emphariinlly to mark the
 fact that he was wholly without white blovd. I What.ver he
 was, and whatever he did, he achieved all in virtue of qualities
Which in kind are common to the African race. Though of