"Hombre apercebido, medio combatido," says
Don Quixote, or Sancho, I do not remember which. Had Queen Bess weighed
well in her own mind the probable consequences of this lamentable traffic,
it is likely she would not have been owner of two vessels in Sir John
Hawkins's squadron, which committed the first robbery in negro flesh on the
coast of Africa. As philanthropy is the very life and soul of this
momentous question on slavery, which is certainly fraught with great
difficulties and danger, perhaps it would be as well at present for the
nation to turn its thoughts to poor ill-fated Ireland, where oppression,
poverty and rags make a heart-rending appeal to the feelings of the
benevolent.
But to proceed. There was another thing which added to the dullness of
Barbadoes and which seemed to have considerable effect in keeping away
strangers from the island. The Legislature had passed a most extraordinary
Bill, by virtue of which every person who arrives at Barbadoes is obliged
to pay two dollars, and two dollars more on his departure from it.
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