294 WANDERINGS IN 



FOURTH h e damned his own handicraft in wing-making ; 



JOURNEY. . ... 



" devovitque suas artes. Prudence is a cardinal 

 virtue : 



" Omnia consult^ mente gerenda tegens." 



Foresight is half the battle. " Hombre aper- 

 cebido, 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 dulness 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. It is called 

 the alien bill ; and every Barbadian who leaves or 



