THE STUDY OF NATURE. 29 
this noble appeal: ‘The First of the Blacks to the 
First of the Whites!’ * Permit me to doubt if it were 
his. At least, if he conceived it, it was my father 
who gave expression to the idea. 
“He loved my father warmly; he perceived his 
frankness, and he trusted him—he, so profoundly mis- 
trustful, dumb with his long slavery, and secret as the 
tomb! But who can die without having one day un- 
locked his heart? It was my father’s misfortune that 
at certain moments Toussaint broke his silence, and 
made him the confidant of dangerous mysteries. 
Thenceforth, all was over; he became afraid of the 
young man, and felt himself dependent upon him—a 
new servitude, which could only end with my father’s 
death. Toussaint threw him into prison, and_ then, 
with a fresh access of fear, would have sacrificed him. 
Fortunately, the prisoner was guarded by gratitude ; 
he had been bountiful to many of the blacks; a negress 
whom he had protected, warned him of his peril, and 
assisted him to escape from it. All his life long he 
sought that woman, to show his gratitude towards her ; 
he did not discover her until some fourteen years after- 
wards, on his last voyage; she was then living in the 
United States. 
“To return: though out of prison, he was not saved. 
Wandering astray in the forest, at night, without a 
guide, he had cause to dread the Maroons, those im- 
placable enemies of the whites, who would have killed 
him, in ignorance that they were murdering the best } 
* It was with this exordium Toussaint commenced his appeal to 
Napoleon Bonaparte. 
