universal consent of the inhabitants, with a Christian focus. This document was penned by Dyer, he signing his name and then adding the title "clerk." Planning initially to settle in New Netherland, the group was persuaded by Roger Williams to purchase some land of the Indians on the Narragansett Bay. They settled on the north east end of Aquidneck Island, and established a settlement they called Pocasset, but in 1639 changed the name to Portsmouth. William Coddington was elected the first leader of the settlement, and given the Biblical title of Judge. A year after arriving in Portsmouth there was discord among the leadership of the settlement, and several of the leaders decided to go elsewhere. Dyer was one of nine men to sign an agreement on 28 April 1639 whereby a new plantation would be formed. The men and their families soon moved to the south end of Aquidneck Island, establishing the settlement of Newport, once again under the leadership of Coddington. Once established in Newport, Dyer and three others were tasked in June 1639 to proportion the new lands, and within the next year he was assigned 87 acres. In 1640 the two Aquidneck Island towns of Portsmouth and Newport united under a single government, and Dyer was the Secretary for them during the entire period that the island remained under its own authority, from 1640 to 1647. Roger Williams, who envisioned a union of all four settlements on the Narragansett Bay, went to England to obtain a patent bringing all four towns under one government. Williams was successful in obtaining this document late in 1643, and it was brought from England and read to representatives of the four towns in 1644. Coddington was opposed to the Williams patent and managed to resist union with Providence until 1647 when representatives of the four towns ultimately met and adopted the Williams patent of 1643/4. With all of the Narragansett settlements now under one government, Dyer was elected the General Recorder for the entire colony in 1648. Coddington was unhappy with the consolidated government, and wanted colonial independence for the two island towns, and decided to go to England to present his case to the Colonial Commissioners in London. In April 1651, the Council of State of England gave Coddington the commission of a separate government for the island of Aquidneck and for the smaller neighboring island of Conanicut (later