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[Footnote w: It may naturally be supposed that many Historical
Documents perished, when the Bards were destroyed by King Edward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