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The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525

Note 67 — Chapter I

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“The most ancient Discouery of the West Indies by Madoc, the sonne of Owen Guyneth Prince of North-wales, in the yeere 1170: taken out of the history of Wales, lately published by M. Dauid Powel Doctor of Diuinity.... Madoc another of Owen Guyneth his sonnes left the land in contention betwixt his brethren, & prepared certaine ships with men and munition, and sought aduentures by Seas, sailing West, and leauing the coast of Ireland so farre North, that he came vnto a land vnknowen, where he saw many strange things....

“Of the voyage and returne of this Madoc there are many fables fained, as the common people doe vse in distance of place and length of time rather to augment then to diminish: but sure it is there he was. And after he had returned home, and declared the pleasant and fruitfull countreys that he had seene without inhabitants, and vpon the contrary part, for what barren & wild ground his brethren and nephewes did murther one another, he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to liue in quietnesse: and taking leaue of his friends, tooke his journey thitherward againe.... This Madoc arriving in that Western country, vnto his people there, and returning back for more of his owne nation, acquaintance, & friends to inhabit that faire & large countrey, went thither again with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn Owen.”—Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.

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