The Island was amongst the first discoveries of the celebrated navigator, Cabot, who named it Saint John, as indicative of the day of its discovery. Britain failing to lay claim to it, the French afterwards assumed it as part of the discoveries made by Verazani in 1523. In 1663 it was granted, with other Islands, by the Company of New France, to the Sieur Doublet, a captain in the French navy, with whom were associated two adventurers who established a few fishing stations, but who did not reside permanently on the island. In the year 1713 Anne, the Queen of Great Britain, and Louis XIV, the King of France, concluded the celebrated treaty of Utrecht, by which Acadia and Newfoundland were ceded to Great Britain. The fourteenth article of that treaty provided that the French inhabitants of the ceded territory should be at liberty to remove within a year to any other place. Many of the Acadians, availing themselves of this liberty, removed to the Island of Saint John, which was then under French rule. Subsequently a French officer, who received his instructions from the Governor of Cape Breton, resided with a garrison of sixty men at Port la Joie (Charlottetown). A Frenchman who had visited the island in 1752 published an account of it shortly afterwards. His report as to the fertility of the soil, the quantity of game, and the productiveness of the fishery was extremely favorable, and he expressed astonishment that with these advantages the island should not have been more densely populated—its inhabitants numbering only 1354. The great fortress of Louisburg fell in 1745, but was restored to the French in 1748. War was again declared by Britain against France in 1756, and in 1758 Louisburg again fell under the leadership of the gallant Wolfe. After the reduction of the fortress several war ships were detached to seize on the Island of Saint John; an object which was effected without difficulty. Mr. McGregor, in his account of the island, says that the population was stated to be at this time ten thousand, but an old Acadian living when he wrote informed him that it could not have exceeded six thousand. A little over four thousand seems to have been the number of inhabitants at this period. [A] The expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia took place in 1755, and many of them having escaped to the island in that year, its population must have been nearly doubled by the influx of fugitives. The fall of Quebec followed that of Louisburg, and by the treaty of Fontainebleau, in 1763, Cape Breton, the Island of Saint John, and Canada were formally ceded to Great Britain, Cape Breton and the Island of Saint John being placed under the Government of Nova Scotia.