The plantation at Agamenticus was incorporated into a borough in 1641, and subsequently, in 1642, into a city, under the name of Gorgeana. Thomas Gorges, cousin of Sir F. Gorges, and father of Ferdinando, was the first mayor. It was also made a free port. Though Gorgeana was probably the first incorporated city in America, it was in reality no more than an inconsiderable sea-coast village, with a few houses in some of the best places for fishing and navigation. Its territory was, however, ample, embracing twenty-one square miles. There was little order or morality among the people, and in one account it is said "they had as many shares in a woman as a fishing boat."[74] All the earlier authorities I have seen agree in giving Gorgeana an indifferent character, and I was not surprised to find a couplet still extant, expressive of the local estimate in which its villages were once held. "Cape Neddock and the Nubble, Old York and the d--l." Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, made, in 1643, the following entry in his "Journal:" "Those of Sir Ferdinando Gorge his province beyond Piscat were not admitted to the confederation,[75] because they ran a different course from us, both in their ministry and civil administration; for they had lately made Accomenticus (a poor village) a corporation, and had made a taylor their mayor, and had entertained one Mr. Hull, an excommunicated person, and very contentious, for their minister." A Boston man, and a magistrate, stood thus early on his dignity. Sir F. Gorges makes his appearance in that brilliant and eventful period when Elizabeth ruled in England, Henry IV. in France, and Philip II. in Spain. He is said to have revealed the conspiracy of Devereux, earl of Essex, to Sir Walter Raleigh, after having himself been privy to it.[76] This act, a bar-sinister in the biography of Gorges, sullies his escutcheon at the outset. History must nevertheless award that he was the most zealous, the most indefatigable, and the most influential of those who freely gave their talents and their wealth to the cause of American colonization. Gorges deserves to be called the father of New England. For more than forty years--extending through the reigns of James I. and of Charles I., the Commonwealth, and the Restoration--he pursued his favorite idea with a constancy that seems almost marvelous when the troublous times in which he lived are passed in review. In a letter to Buckingham on the affairs of Spain, Gorges says he was sometimes thought worthy to be consulted by Elizabeth.