Hitherto we have discover’d the several Opinions concerning the Original of the Americans, or first Plantation of America, from all which, having receiv’d no clear or demonstrative satisfaction, we must open our way to a further scrutiny: But first, we must needs confess, that contradiction is not difficult; but it is something of Work, when we have beaten down a well-fortifi’d Opinion, to set up somewhat in stead thereof, to stand a permanent and undeniable truth, which will be the harder, in regard the Inhabitants of this new World have no old Chronologies concerning their Antiquities, and first settling there; yet if we cannot go so far absolutely to assert, yet some probabilities, grounded (as we suppose) upon better reasons, may give more satisfaction; for none will deny, but that the Generations of Mankind being strangely multiply’d after the Flood, they then living five times our Ages, and Wars not beginning till the known part of the Earth was over-stock’d, justling for Territories, and some thrust quite out, at last found America; which spreading it self to a vast extent, and now found almost every where well inhabited, may be guess’d, that it was not onely Planted from the first, but several times replenish’d since by various Nations; Why may not several Planters, and at several times make room for their Colonies, incroaching one upon another, either by force or compact; as the French themselves upon the Gauls, the Normans upon them, the Goths among the Spaniards, and the Saxons among the Brittains, and the Normans again upon them?
Several people may easily Sail over thither, the Azores or the Canary Isles lye so, that they are ready (as if design’d) for Transportation to America; from whence Acosta made a Voyage in fifteen days. Also Pliny gives us an account, that these Islands lay uninhabited in his time; yet is it well known, that after Pliny’s time, Ruins of Buildings were found there, signifying, they had been formerly Planted; and why might not those ancient Inhabitants Sail thence to the neighboring America?
Marian. de Reb. Hisp. l. 1. c. 18.
Tercera lying half way between Spain and America, was frequented by Navigators before the Birth of our Savior; and it seems as easie to Sail from thence to America, as from the Main Land of Spain thither: Add this, that necessity forc’d the Spaniards to look about them from other Countreys, for since they lost their Victorious Champion Baucius Gapetus, they were every where beaten, being tired out by the Phenician Forces, and that oppression over, suffer’d as much under the Roman Yoke: Wherefore it seems not strange, if a considerable number remov’d from thence, that they might live some where else in quiet; for which purpose they wanted no conveniencies to Rig and set forth stout and sufficient Vessels, able to live in those Seas, having had long experience from the Phenician Voyagers, whose Fleets Sail’d daily to and again in several Expeditions, from Cadiz and Gibraltar towards these Western Countreys: Nay, Hanno himself their first Navigator that way, who gives an account of the Gorgons, or the Isles of Cape Verd, a good part of the way to America.
English famous Sea-men.
Barat-anac, or, Tinland, the Phenician name, and Brittania the Greek name of Brittain.
And though Brittain, Ireland, and the Brittish Orcades lay further from America, yet something may be said particularly to prove, That many Ages since, Expeditions had been made from thence to the New World; and that the Inhabitants of these our Isles, in former Ages, were peculiarly famous for their skill in Navigation; insomuch, that the Cretans and Phenicians emulous of their skill, and jealous of their danger, made several Attacques and Invasions upon these Isles, which is the more probable, many remarks of the Phenician and Greek Language, remaining in the denominations of the Countrey: Of which, take first this account:
Old Voyage of Madok to America; for which see Vet. Hist. Brit.
Anno 1170. When Owen Guyneth, Prince of Wales, having Raign’d long and happily in his setled Dominions, dying, left several Sons, who quarrelling, their elder Brother, as not contented with their shares of the Principality, nor to be under him, having gotten no mean Interests and Claims to the whole by their struglings, so weakned one another, that they open’d a way to the loosing of all.
David Powel in Historia Cambriæ.