page_title: History of Charlottetown
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Charlottetown / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst - I took this picture on June 30, 2007 at Fort Amherst in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
context_page_description: The History of Charlottetown can be traced back to the original French military settlement established on the site in 1720. Over the years Charlottetown has grown to become the largest and most important city on Prince Edward Island.
context_section_description: The first European settlers in the area were French; personnel from Fortress Louisbourg founded a settlement in 1720 named Port-la-Joye on the southwestern part of the harbour opposite the present-day city.  This settlement was led by Michel Haché-Gallant, who used his sloop to ferry Acadian settlers from Louisbourg.
  During King George's War, the British had taken over the island. French officer Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de Ramezay sent 500 men to attack the British troops in the Battle at Port-la-Joye. The French were successful in killing or taking prisoner forty British troops.
  In August 1758, at the height of the Seven Years' War, a British fleet took control of the settlement and the rest of the island, promptly deporting those French settlers that they could find (this being fully three years after the original Acadian Expulsion in Nova Scotia).  British forces built Fort Amherst near the site of the abandoned Port-la-Joye settlement to protect the entrance to the harbour.
  Charlottetown was selected as the site for the county seat of Queens County in the colonial survey of 1764 by Captain Samuel Holland of the Royal Engineers. A year later, Charlottetown was made the colonial capital of St. John's Island. Further surveys conducted between 1768–1771 established the street grid and public squares which can be seen in the city's historic district. The town was named in honour of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of King George III.
  On November 17, 1775, the colony's new capital was ransacked by Massachusetts-based privateers, participants in the American Revolutionary War. During the attack, the colonial seal was stolen and several prisoners, including Phillips Callbeck and Thomas Wright, were taken to Cambridge, Massachusetts and later released.
  In 1793, land had been set aside by Governor Fanning on the western limits of the community for use by the "Administrator of Government" (the Governor), and as such it became known informally as "Fanning's Bank" or just "Fanning Bank".
  On November 29, 1798, St. John's Island was renamed to Prince Edward Island in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn who was the Commander-in-Chief, North America.
caption: Fort Amherst, southwest of the city by the approaches to Charlottetown Harbour. The area was first settled there by the French in 1720.
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