Spanish historians add their testimony, and claim the Phoenicians as their principal colonizers.  The Hispania Illustrata, a rare and valuable work, on which no less than sixty writers were engaged, fixes the date of the colonization of Spain by the Phoenicians at 764 A.C.  De Bellegarde says:  “The first of whom mention is made in history is Hercules, the Phoenician, by some called Melchant.”  It is alleged that he lived in the time of Moses, and that he retired into Spain when the Israelites entered the land of promise.  This will be consistent with old accounts, if faith can be placed in the inscription of two columns, which were found in the province of Tingitane, at the time of the historian Procopius.[50] A Portuguese historian, Emanuel de Faria y Sousa, mentions the sailing of Gatelus from Egypt, with his whole family, and names his two sons, Iberus and Himerus, the first of whom, he says, “some will have to have sailed into Ireland, and given the name Hibernia to it.”

Indeed, so strong has been the concurrent testimony of a Phoenician colonization of Ireland from Spain, and this by independent authorities, who could not have had access to our bardic histories, and who had no motive, even had they known of their existence, to write in confirmation of them, that those who have maintained the theory of a Gaulish colonization of Ireland, have been obliged to make Spain the point of embarkation.

There is a curious treatise on the antiquities and origin of Cambridge, in which it is stated, that, in the year of the world 4321, a British prince, the son of Gulguntius, or Gurmund, having crossed over to Denmark, to enforce tribute from a Danish king, was returning victorious off the Orcades, when he encountered thirty ships, full of men and women.  On his inquiring into the object of their voyage, their leader, Partholyan, made an appeal to his good-nature, and entreated from the prince some small portion of land in Britain, as his crew were weary of sailing over the ocean.  Being informed that he came from Spain, the British prince received him under his protection, and assigned faithful guides to attend him into Ireland, which was then wholly uninhabited; and he granted it to them, subject to an annual tribute, and confirmed the appointment of Partholyan as their chief.[51]

This account was so firmly believed in England, that it is specially set forth in an Irish act (11th of Queen Elizabeth) among the “auncient and sundry strong authentique tytles for the kings of England to this land of Ireland.”  The tradition may have been obtained from Irish sources, and was probably “improved” and accommodated to fortify the Saxon claim, by the addition of the pretended grant; but it is certainly evidence of the early belief in the Milesian colonization of Ireland, and the name of their leader.