[ 3t ] 



This migration of an Irifh colony under the command of 

 Riada appears to have been efFeded about the year 150 ; and 

 whatever private families might have fettled there before (which 

 is not denied) this is the firft colony of which we have any 

 diftind account in the Irifh hiftorians ; and here they have 

 been fo particular as to name fome of the other chiefs who 

 accompanied him, and got the principal pofleflions in th* coun- 

 try. This Riada is faid to have been the fon of Conaire the 

 Second, monarch of Ireland ; and that he is the fame with the 

 Rheuda of venerable Bede, appears from the Irifh writers, who 

 conftantly give the colony the name of Dalriadans, whom Bede 

 calls Dalrheudini, until the time of Niall Niagallach, who fent 

 frefh colonies of Irifh Scots into Caledonia after their difperfion 

 byMaximus; and from thenceforth we hear no more of them 

 in the Irifh accounts by their old name, but they are by com- 

 mon confent called Scots. This alteration is obfervable from 

 about the year 390, which anfwers nearly to the firft accounts 

 we have of them under the name of Scots, in the writers of 

 other nations. 



This I take to be a probable and defenfible account of the 

 rife of this third nation (as Bede calls it) and its admittance into 

 Caledonia ; which at the fame time that it is confiftent with the 

 fuppofition of Ireland's being originally peopled from the adja- 

 cent parts of Britain (which the later Scottifh antiquarians fo 

 ftifHy contend for) is alfo agreeable to the hypothefis of the 

 Milefian fettlement in Ireland and the fuccefiion of their kings 

 according to Irifh hiftory ; and conformable to the account given 



by 



