Note 698 — INDEX. (continued 2)

In the seventeenth century there were a variety of symptoms of the English eagerness to get the claims of Madoc substantiated, as in Sir Richard Hawkins’s Observations (Hakluyt Soc., 1847), and James Howell’s Familiar Letters (London, 1645). Belknap (Amer. Biog., 1794, i. p. 58) takes this view of Hakluyt’s purpose; but Pinkerton, Voyages, 1812, xii. 157, thinks such a charge an aspersion. The subject was mentioned with some particularity or incidentally by Purchas, Abbott (Brief Description, London, 1620, 1634, 1677), Smith (Virginia), and Fox (North-West Fox). Sir Thomas Herbert in his Relation of some Travaile into Africa and Asia (London, 1634) tracks Madoc to Newfoundland, and he also found Cymric words in Mexico, which assured him in his search for further proofs (Bohn’s Lowndes, p. 1049; Carter-Brown, ii. 413, 1166).