MILITARY AND CIVIL. - 47 
     
    
   
   
    
     Kent. This change was considered necessary on account of 
     
     letters and other articlesaddressed to the Island often being 
     
     forwarded to other places bearing the same name as that of this 
     
    
   
   
    
     Province. But on’taking leave of‘the old familiar term,notwith- .. 
     
    
   
   
    
     standing various opinions and the enlightened source, perhaps, 
     
    
   
   
    
     from which those opinions have been derived, the question as to 
     
     who bestowed upon the Island the name of St. John, may again 
     
     be asked. It is an established fact that the Island’s first 
     
     European occupants, the French, repudiated England’s claim to . 
     
     having discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the medium 
     
     of their explorers, the Cabots, and as sole possessors of those 
     
    

    
     regions the French were not likely to adopta name given to 
     
    

    
     any section thereof by a foreign nation. St. Johns, Newfound- 
     
    

    
     land~as we are told —was discovered by John Cabot, on the' 
     
     24th of June, 1497, and during the following year his son 
     
    

    
     Sebastian, on his second voyage of discovery, sailed from 
     
    

    
     'England early in the summer, andon reaching the rugged coast 
     
    

    
     of Newfoundland directed the course of his ships nOrthward in 
     
    

    
     search of a northwest passage through to .India. . It was there- 
     
    

    
     fore impossible that an~ Island situated in the southwest of the 
     
    

    
     Gulf of St. Lawrence couldhave been discovered by either of 
     
    

    
     these celebratedvnaviga'tors 'on’ St. John’s day—as asserted by 
     
    

    
     Island historians—when the fact is recorded of them, that they, 
     
    

    
     the Cabots, were hundreds _of miles distant on that particular 
     
    

    
     date, and there is every r‘eason'to believe that the author of the 
     
    

    
     original name was the honored founder of Quebec, Samuel 
     
    

    
     Champlain. Under theappellation of St. Jean or St. John, 
     
    

    
     the Isle was cared for by the French‘ people, and was ceded 
     
    

    
     to the British Crown under the name supposed to. be given 
     
    

    
     to it by themselves, which certainly is the most likely. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In 1801 Thomas Chochran, Esq., received the appointment 
     
     of Chief Justice, which he held for a few months, exchanging 
     
     situations with Robert Throp, of Newfoundland, in 1802. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Queen Square about this time—though in a rugged and 
     
     uncleared state——received the first series of public edifices, the 
     
     site being between our present Colonial Building and Post 
     
     Office. Here on this site the first St. Paul’s Episcopal Church 
     
     was erected, and when completed in r802 was capable of>hold- 
     
     ing over three hundred people, its tower, at the southwest end, 
     
     was surmounted by a steeple and weathervane, and within 
     
     hung a sweet toned bell. This was the first church built in the