The Spanish in the sixteenth century made various evanescent explorations of the Gulf coast and the entrances to the Mississippi, but never gained a permanent foothold. La Salle descended the great river to its mouth in 1682, took possession of the country for France and named it Louisiana, in honor of his King Louis XIV. The first colony planted in the Province by the French was at Biloxi Bay on the Gulf coast, about eighty miles northeast of New Orleans, in February, 1699, by Commander d'Iberville. Biloxi is now a quiet town of five thousand people, having a good trade and some manufactures. A short distance to the westward is Beauvoir, which was the home of the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, where he died in 1889; and about ten miles farther westward is the extensive Bay St. Louis, where at Pass Christian is one of the most frequented pleasure-resorts on the Gulf coast. The French built a fort at Biloxi, and for years d'Iberville and his younger brother, the Sieur de Bienville, maintained their colony under serious difficulties, de Bienville finally deciding to change the location, and removing to Mobile bay. After considerable exploration, however, he determined upon a permanent location within the Mississippi River, and entering the passes in 1718 he ascended to where he found the most eligible fast land and founded the colony of New Orleans, naming it in honor of the then Regent of France, the Duke of Orleans. Thus began the city, which in 1721, being then described as "a village of trappers and gold hunters," was made the capital of the French royal Province of Louisiana. In 1732 it had about five thousand population, and after the transfer of sovereignty to the United States it was chartered a city in 1804, then having ten thousand. There are now two hundred and seventy-five thousand people in New Orleans.