Though contrary to History, let us suppose that the Britons were void of all Understanding and Judgment, of all literary Merit; that doth not, in the least, affect the Truth of Prince Madog’s Emigration; for by all that appears, it was not owing to Knowledge or Judgment, but was the consequence of Necessity and Prudence.  This Prince, however dull and sottish, might have sense enough to see that be could no where be in a worse condition than he was in his Native Country.  There he could not live in safety, being always surrounded by a lawless Banditti, who sacrificed their Friends, Relations, and even their Parents, to inherit their Dominions or Possessions, which after all, for the most part, were only a small beggarly, wild, and uncultivated District; ragged Rocks and Precipices; barren Mountains; or boggy, unfruitful, and unfriendly Soil.

If an Objection be made to the Truth of Madog’s Voyages, grounded upon the silence of History for so many Years, it may with no great difficulty be answered.[v]

[Footnote v:  The History of the Gwedir Family by Sir John Wynne, published by the Honorable Daines Barrington, 1773, and afterwards in his Miscellanies, in 1781, takes no notice of Madog’s Voyages; but mentions him as a Son of Owen Gwynedd.  This Author was born in 1553, and died in 1626.  He seems, chiefly, at least, to enumerate those Branches of Owen Gwynedd’s Descendants, who were his own Ancestors.  The present Sir Thomas Wynne, Bart. and Lord Newborough of the Kingdom of Ireland is, I think, a Descendant of our Author.]

The only History of that Period of British affairs were the Registers kept at Conway, and Strata Florida, above mentioned; or which Guttun Owen took the most exact and perfect Copy; and the Odes of the Bards, for several Years afterwards.[w] These are the only records we have of there Times.

[Footnote w:  It may naturally be supposed that many Historical Documents perished, when the Bards were destroyed by King Edward the Ist.]

Objections shall be more particularly considered when I come to consider what Lord Lyttlelton and Dr. Robertson have advanced on this Subject.

The Antients were incapable of pursuing foreign discoveries by Land or Sea.  Their notion of the Figure of the Earth was not just, for most of them thought that it was a flat extensive plain.  Their Knowlege of Astronomy was very much confined; and their Ignorance of the Properties of the Loadstone would prevent their undertaking any Voyage of Consequence.  Supposing the Country which Madog discovered was not America, yet to say the Story is a late Invention, and forged after the discovery of that Continent by Columbus, with a View to set up a prior Claim to it, is plainly false; for, besides the testimony of Peter Martyr, respecting Names and Customs, we know that the Fact had been celebrated by Welsh Bards before Columbus first sailed to the West.[x]

[Footnote x:  The Welsh Bards were also Historians.  They were retained in great Families to record the actions of their Ancestors, and their own, in Odes and Songs.  Their poems, therefore, may be considered, as History, sometimes, probably, in some degree, embellished.  Out of Hatred to the Church of Rome, they seem, occasionly, to have written something in the name of Taliossyn, &c.  But the Voyage of Prince Madog had nothing to do with Religion.]