In 1670, during Jean Talon's second tenure as Intendant of New France, a French officer annexed the islands when he found a dozen French fishermen camped there. The British Royal Navy soon began to harass the French settlers, pillaging their camps and ships. By the early 1700s the islands were again uninhabited, and France ceded them to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713. The British renamed St Pierre to 'St Peter', and small numbers of British and American settlers began arriving.