Bay, which took effect in 1692 with the arrival of royal governor Sir William Phips. Wessagusset Colony: 1622–1623 The Wessagusset Colony (sometimes called the Weston Colony or Weymouth Colony) was a short-lived trading colony located in Weymouth, Massachusetts. It was settled in August 1622 by approximately 55 colonists who were ill-prepared for colonial life and lacking adequate provisions. The colony was dissolved in late March 1623, and the surviving colonists either joined the Plymouth Colony or returned to England. Governor-General of New England: 1623–1624 In 1623, Robert Gorges was commissioned as Governor-General of New England by King Charles I to oversee Plymouth, Wessagusset, and future New England colonies. Gorges established a small colony on the site of the recently failed Wessagusset Colony; his effort was abandoned after one year for financial reasons. Some of his settlers remained in the area without formal governance, moving to occupy the Shawmut Peninsula (site of Boston, Massachusetts) among other places. Massachusetts Bay Colony: 1629–1686, 1689–1692 The Massachusetts Bay Company was established in 1628 and was funded in part by investors in the failed Dorchester Company. In that year, the company elected Matthew Cradock as its governor and received a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England for land roughly between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers. The company dispatched John Endecott and a small company of settlers to Massachusetts Bay not long after acquiring the grant. In 1629, the company received a royal charter as a means to guarantee its grant against other claims, and elected Endecott as the first colonial governor, while Cradock continued to govern the company in London. In August 1629, the shareholders reorganized the company so that the charter could be removed to the colony, merging corporate and colonial administration. John Winthrop was elected governor in October, but did not formally take charge of the colony until he arrived in 1630. Colonial officials (governor, deputy governor, and the council of assistants) were elected annually from then on by the freemen of the colony. The governorship was dominated by a small group of early settlers who sought to ensure that the vision of a Puritan settlement was maintained; Richard Bellingham, John Leverett, and Simon Bradstreet all served extended terms, in addition to Winthrop and Endecott, and Thomas Dudley served 4 1-year terms. All these men also served in positions of importance when they were not serving as governor. The colony's governance