The best copy of these registers was taken by Guttun Owen, a Bard, in the Reign of Edward the IVth.  King of England, about the year 1480; before the first Voyage of Columbus; but that the continuation, though not Caradoc’s, is a true History, we have no just reason to question.

Cynfrig ab Gronow, about the same time with Guttun Owen, mentioned this Event.  Those Bards lived between two and three Hundred Years after Madog’s Emigration; and before them it is alluded to by Sir Meredyth ab Rhy’s about the year 1477.  Humphry Llwyd the Translator of Caradoc flourished in the reign of Henry the VIIIth, King of England, about 50 or 60 years after Guttun Owen,[f] and Dr. Powel published Llwyd’s Translation, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, about 40 Years after the death of Humphry Llwyd, whose death prevented its earlier publication.

[Footnote f:  Guttun Owen was a Person of Note in the Reign of Henry the VIIth. of England; for he was the second Person named in a Commission issued by that Prince to search the pedigree of Owen Tudor, that King’s Grandfather.  Caradoc’s History. p. 325. and Appendix, p. 334.  Edit. 1697.  This Commission, probably was issued about the Year 1500, when Henry sent his Son Arthur into Wales.]

There can be little doubt, but that the writings of Guttun Owen, Cynfrig ab Gronow, and of Sir Meredyth ab Rhys, were extant in the Days of Llwyd and Powel, and known to many persons who lived in the principality, as Powel did.

The next account I have met with of this Event is in Hakluyt.

“After the death of Owen Gwynedd, his Sonnes fell at debate who should inherit after him, for the eldest Sonne born in Matrimony, Edward, or Jorwerth Drwidion (Drwyndwn) was counted unmeet to govern because of the maime upon his Face, and Howel that took upon him the Rule, was a bare Sonne, begotten upon an Irish Woman.  Therefore David, another Sonne, gathered all the power he could, and came against Howel, and fighting with him, slew him, and afterwards enjoyed quietly the whole Land of North Wales until his Brother Jorwerth’s Sonne came to Age.

“Madoc, another of Owen Gwyneth’s Sonnes, left the land in contentions betwixt his Brethren, and prepared certain Ships with Men and munition and fought adventures by Seas, sailing West and leaving the coast of Ireland so farre North, that he came to a Land unknown, where he saw many strange things.

“This Land must needs be some parts of the Countrey of which the Spanyards affirm themselves to be the first Finders since Hauno’s[g] Time:  whereupon it is manifest that that Countrey was by Britons discovered long before Columbus led any Spanyards thither.

[Footnote g:  The Carthaginian Admiral, supposed to have flourished about 450 years before Christ.]