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The next Account of Prince Madog's Adventures, I have met with is in Hornius De Originibus Americanis. Hagæ Comitis, 1652. What he hath advanced is much the same, and contains little more, as he himself says, than Extracts from Llwyd, Hakluyt, and Powel. His Observations on the Subject are the following.
It seems to me not a little strange that Lord Lyttelton should say, "that no certain Monument, Vestige or Memorial of Madog's Voyage was ever found." It is hardly possible that his Lordship would say it, if he saw Hornius, and some other authorities, above produced, especially Peter Martyr for we have above seen that many such Memorials were, and are now to be found in America.
There is nothing new in these two last books: and it were to be wished that they had been written with less bitterness. It has been observed, that Grotius's system is not new; and that it had been already advanced by Myl, whom Grotius does not once quote. Hornius, de Orig. Gent. Amer. l. 1. c. 2. p. 17.
With Submission to his Lordship, I think that the Course is clearly marked, and so thought Hornius, as appears from what he says in the Extract above cited: for it is said that Madog sailed west-ward, and left the Coast of Ireland to the North, and that he fell in with Land in that Direction. And it is certain that no Land is found in that Direction, but America.
It is true, that these Customs may have been introduced by other Nations; by the Chinese, Japanese, &c. as Hornius hath observed: but this does not concern my subject, which is only to examine which of the European Nations first visited America.
By whom, how, and when that vast Continent was first peopled, are questions which have employed the thoughts and pens of learned Men for several Centuries. Hornius in his De Originibus Americanis, and Dr. I. Cap. 2. Dr. Robertson's History of America, Vol.
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