[I-241] Chambers' Jour., vol. vi., p. 411.
[I-242] 'These accounts are copied from manuscripts of Dr. W. O. Pughe, who, together with Edward Williams (the bard of Glamorgan), made diligent inquiries in America about forty years ago, when they collected upwards of one hundred different accounts of the Welsh Indians.' Id. 'It is reported by travellers in the west, that on the Red River ... very far to the southwest, a tribe of Indians has been found, whose manners, in several respects, resemble the Welch.... They call themselves the McCedus tribe, which having the Mc or Mac attached to their name, points evidently to a European origin, of the Celtic description.... It is well authenticated that upwards of thirty years ago, Indians came to Kaskaskia, in the territory, now the state of Illinois, who spoke the Welch dialect, and were perfectly understood by two Welchmen then there, who conversed with them.' Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 230-2.
[I-243] Recherches, p. 157. Griffiths related his adventures to a native of Kentucky, and they were published in 1804, by Mr Henry Toulmin, one of the Judges of the territory of Mississippi. See Stoddard's Sketches of Louisiana, p. 475; Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, vol. i., 1805.
[I-244] Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 305.
[I-245] We read farther: 'But what is still more remarkable, in their war song he discovered, not only the sentiments, but several lines, the very same words as used in Ossian's celebrated majestic poem of the wars of his ancestors, who flourished about thirteen hundred years ago. The Indian names of several of the streams, brooks, mountains and rocks of Florida, are also the same which are given to similar objects, in the highlands of Scotland.' All this, could we believe it, would fill us with astonishment; but the solution of the mystery lies in the next sentence: 'This celebrated metaphysician (Monboddo) was a firm believer in the anciently reported account of America's having been visited by a colony from Wales long previous to the discovery of Columbus.' Priest's Amer. Antiq., p. 230. It is this being a 'firm believer' in a given theory that makes so many things patent to the enthusiast which are invisible to ordinary men.
[I-246] Monastikon Britannicum, pp. 131-2, 187-8, cited in De Costa's Pre-Columbian Disc. Amer., p. xviii.
[I-247] See Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 188-90; De Costa's Pre-Columbian Disc. Amer., pp. xviii.-xx.
[I-248] Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains Comparées aux Mœurs des Premiers Temps. Paris, 1724.
[I-249] García, Orígen de los Ind., pp. 189-92.
[I-250] Pidgeon's Trad., p. 16.