2 HISTORY OF PRINCE EDWVARD ISLAND.

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claim to it, the French afterwards assumed it as part of the discoveries made by Vera'zani in 1523. In 1063 it was granted, with other Islands, by the Company of New France, to the Sieur Donblet, 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 theinselves’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 Fort la Joic (Charlottetown). . A Frenchman who had visited the island in 1752 pub- lished 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 17—15, but was restored to the French in 1718. \Var was again declared by Britain against France in 1756, and in 1758 Louisburg again fell. under the leadership of the gallant \Volt'e. 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 ditficulty. hIr. MeGregor, in his account