more secure to sail in an open Sea, than among Shelves and Shoals
on an unknown Coast.

But not to insist upon this Circumstance; if the Country Madog
discovered was Madeira, or any of the Western Islands, he must
have found them uninhabited, and entirely uncultivated, covered
with Wood, and without any Traces of Human Beings; for as the Doctor
himself says, this was the state of the Madeiras when discovered
by the Portuguese in 1519. The other Western Isles were not, even,
settled, for some Centuries after Madog's Voyages.[uu]

[Footnote uu: Dr. Robertson. ubi supra. Vol. I. p. 64. If the Country
on which Madog landed was uninhabited, how could he have found the
Customs and Manners of the People different from those of Europe?
Where there were no Inhabitants, there could be no Customs.]

What the Doctor hath said, after Lord Lyttelton, concerning the
Literature and Naval skill of the ancient Britons, hath been already
animadverted upon. To add more on those particulars, is unnecessary.

If we could find no Word, among the Americans, similar to the ancient
British, in sound and sense, but Pengwyn, I should no more depend
upon that circumstance than Mr. Pennant doth; but that is not the
case: for many such words were found among the Natives of the New
World, and in the West Indian Islands, which are neither obscure
nor fanciful; for they had not only a strong resemblance in found,
but convey the same Idea precisely, in both Languages.

As to traces of Christianity, Hornius hath enumerated many that
were found there by the Spaniards; such as the Cross, Baptism,