The diary of Thomas Vernon, a loyalist, banished from Newport by the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1776

Some years after Charlemagne's death they went as far as his capital, Aix (aks), took the place, and stabled their horses in the cathedral which the great emperor had built. In the year 860 they discovered Iceland and made a settlement upon its shores. A few years later they sailed as far as Greenland , and there established settlements which existed for about a century. These Vikings were the first discoverers of the continent on which we live. Ancient books found in Iceland tell the story of the discovery. It is related that a Viking ship was driven during a storm to a strange coast, which is thought to have been that part of America now known as Labrador . When the captain of the ship returned home he told what he had seen. His tale so excited the curiosity of a young Viking prince, called Leif the Lucky, that he sailed to the newly discovered coast. Going ashore, he found that the country abounded in wild grapes; and so he called it Vinland , or the land of Vines . Vinland is thought to have been a part of what is now the Rhode Island coast ...»