Section IL, 1892. [ 33 ] Trans. Eoy. Soc. Can.4.da. 



III. — AiinaJii of the Nova Scotian Currency. 

 By Robert Wallace McLachlan. 



(Communicated by Dr. Bourinot, .June 1, 1892.) 



Nothiug approaching a scioutific form of money has yet been discovered. From 

 time to time, fluctuations and other disturbances come to shake men's confidence in their 

 circulating medium, showing that although many trust implicitly in money, whatever 

 its form, times of unrest arise wherein what they possess of that commodity is much 

 depreciated in A'alue or rejected as altogether worthless. And while troubles have been 

 caused by a redundancy of change, greater and more persistent troubles have arisen in 

 times past, especially in the colonies, on account of its scarcity. Thus how to remedy 

 the evils arising out of the quantity and quality of their change has always been a vexed 

 question with colonial lawgivers, as many pages of their statute books show, which 

 have been filled with projects, some of them most Utopian and childish, for the proper 

 adjustment of the currency. 



No colonial government has given the currency question such careful attention or 

 made such good provision for the monetary wants of the people as that of Nova Scotia. 

 Besides a regular issue of paper money from 1812, coinages of copper tokens have been 

 periodically struck from 1823 until shortly before Confederation. Since then the Dominion 

 Government has assumed control of the currency and has made such abundant provision 

 that the people do not now suffer from an unsuitable form or dearth of change. As 

 copies of letters and other documents in connection with the Nova Scotian currency have 

 come into my possession I have thought well to lay them before this Society with such 

 conclusions, bearing on a difficult page of our history, as may be drawn therefrom. 



Under the French the currency of Acadia was French, consisting of such limited 

 supplies of money as were brought from the mother laud by colonists or traders. In 16*70 

 this was supplemented by a special coinage, struck at Paris, under edict of Louis XIV., 

 for La Compagnie des Indes " pour la facilité du commerce dans les Isles et Terre ferme de 

 l'Amérique." ' As several specimens of this coinage have been found in Nova Scotia and 

 only one in Quebec, we may conclude that Acadia was the "Terre ferme" mentioned in 

 the edict. As these coins together with those privately imported were'^soou exported as 

 remittances for goods, the country was left with an inadequate supply of change. This 

 state of affairs continued until the conquest, with perhaps occasional specimens of the 

 card money first issued at Quebec in 1685. 



After the expulsion of the Acadiaus, British monetary forms and terms began to 

 prevail ; but, from the abundance of Spanish silver and from constant and intimate 

 shipping communication with the Spanish "West Indies, these coins formed the prevailino- 



' Histoire Monétaire des Colonies Françaises, Paris 1892, E. Zay, page 41. 



Sec. II., 1892. 5. 



