340 A. D. II 71. 



lin, who were Oftmen, left the place with their mofl valuable effects, 

 and, after inefFecftual attempts to recover it by the afliftance of fliips and 

 men obtained from their countrymen of Orkney and Mann, the great- 

 eft number of them retired to thofe illands. [^Hib. exp. L. i, c. 17, et 

 Jeqq.~\ The city being thus deprived of its moft valuable inhabitants, 

 King Henry, by a charter, now extant in the archives of Dublin, dated 

 in the year 1272, gave his city of Divelin {Duhlhi) to be inhabited by 

 his 7nen of Briftow {BriJIol), who had long carried on a commerce with 

 Ireland. Though no notice is taken by the authors of that age of any 

 colonies going over in confequence of the king's grant, it may be pre- 

 fumed that Dublin was foon repeopled, and in a flourifliing condition ; 

 for William of Newburgh, a contemporary writer, [L. ii, c. 26J calls 

 Divelin a noble maritime city, the metropolis of Ireland, and almoft 

 the rival of London for the commerce and abundance in its port. A 

 fubfequent charter of the fame king to his butjcjjcs of Dublin (not Di- 

 velin) grants them a free trade, with exemption trom tolls, pontage, &c. 

 in England, Normandy, Wales, and Ireland. [Chart, in Append, it. i , 2 

 of Lvtiktori's Henry II, B. v.] Camden fays, that from that time Dublin 

 continued in a flourifliing condition, and that the citizens gave fignal 

 proofs of their attachment to the kings of England on many trying oc- 

 cafions ; \^Brit. />. 571] whence it may be prefumed that they were moft- 

 ly Englilh *. 



About this time the difcovery and population of America by the 

 Welfh is fuppofed by fome late writers to have taken place. Accord^ 

 ing to Doftor Powel, [Htji. of Wales, p. 227] a Wclfh prince called Ma- 

 doc ' left the land in contention between his brethren, and prepared 

 * certain fliips with men and munition, and fought adventures by lea, 

 ' failing weft, and leaving the coaft of Ireland fo far to the north, that 

 ' he came to a land unknown, where he law many ftrange things,' in 

 the year 11 70. He ' left moft of his people there, and returning back 

 ' for more of his own nation, acquaintance, and h-iends, to inhabit that 

 ' fair and large country, went thither again with ten fails :' and he adds, 

 ' as I find it noted by Giitryn Owen.'' 



Much has been written upon this Wclfti colony, which was fuppofed 

 to confer upon Britain an unqucftionable right to the fovereignty of 

 America. But, independent of the phyfical impollibility of copper- 

 coloured Indians being defcended from wliite Britons, and of the moral 

 impollibility of Madoc returning from any country lying fouth-wcft 

 from Ireland, and finding his way to Britain by fteering a covn-fe, with- 

 out a compafs, acrofs the broadeft part of the Atlantic ocean, even fup- 

 pofnig his new country to have been to the northward of the trade 



• It appears that confiderable numbers of Oil- it is piohable tbat llicre were many of tlicm alfo 

 men remained in the other principal ports of Ire- in Dubh'ii. [Stc li'aii-^s Aiitiq. llib. p. 126, cd. 

 land in fubjccllon to the Englifh government, and 1654.] 5 



