When my address of 1874 was published, in one of the foot-notes[103] to it I dismissed as improbable an entry in Prince’s Annals to the effect that, in 1624, there came “some addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Weymouth, England,” having with them the Rev. Mr. Barnard, their first non-conformist minister. Mr. Nash, in his paper entitled “Weymouth in its First Twenty Years,” has taken a different view, setting forth in much detail his reasons for believing the fact stated. Very possibly I was wrong, and he is right; and certainly it is corroborative evidence of his rightness that Samuel Maverick fixes that year, 1624, as the time of his coming to New England, and Boston bay. Possibly he was one of Mr. Barnard’s company; and he certainly afterwards sympathized in Mr. Barnard’s religious views. Into these questions it is unnecessary to enter. Nor would it be profitable so to do; for the salient facts are indisputably established that (1), the first Gorges contingent came out and set themselves down at Old Spain in September, 1623; that (2), the settlement there has been continuous from that day to this; (3), some of those thus sent out under the auspices of Gorges had families and left descendants; and finally, (4) that, starting from Wessagusset, these first planters established themselves at points favorable for commercial dealings in pelts and supplies on the north, as well as the south, side of Boston bay. That William Blackstone, the earliest occupant of the historic peninsula on which Boston rose, was one of the Gorges company admits of no question at all; that he came over as one of the companions of Capt. Robert Gorges and the Rev. William Morell scarcely admits of question. Beyond this, while all is matter of surmise, that “all” is merely a question of more or less.