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Having read with fome degree of attention what has been 

 produced in this controverfy on both fides of the queftion, and 

 compared it as well with the antient hiftories of the Scots and 

 Irifh, as with the evidence of fuch foreign writers as make men- 

 lion of them, I am of opinion that a fyitem may be formed 

 from thefe materials equally confiftent with probability and 

 written authority, which rather tends to reconcile than to fubvert 

 the arguments of both parties, and is at the fame time fupported 

 by as convincing evidence as truth at this diftancc of time is 

 capable of receiving. 



It appears to be highly probable that the North of Ireland 

 might have been originally peopled from the adjacent parts of 

 Caledonia, as the Scottilh antiquarians affert, and that the 

 Southern inhabitants of the ifland might have derived their origin 

 from their neighbours in South Britain (perhaps from the Belgse 

 and Danonii, whofe pollerity in Ireland were called Firbolgs and 

 Tuatha de Dananj : I am, therefore, ready to admit that the Irifh 

 might have been the children, rather than the parents of the 

 antient Caledonians. 



But this conceffion, as to the firft population of Ireland, has no 

 tendency to invalidate the hiftory of a certain Milefian Dynafiy 

 having in procefs of time invaded and obtained the dominion of 

 the country without extirpating the antient natives ; for have not 

 the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans in Britain, and the 

 Englifli in Ireland, fince done the fame .'' But no one I believe 

 has been fo abfurd as to infer that either of thefe kingdoms was 

 peopled as well as fubdued by the invaders. 



It 



