ANNALS OF THE NOVA SCOTIAN CUEEENCY. 35 



Under the Act of 1812, to provide for larger coius, treasury notes were issued.' These 

 were gladly hailed by business men as a great convenience and passed current for all 

 transactions within the province. The notes wore first printed from type, signed by the 

 treasurer and countersigned by the commissioners, as provided for in the Act. In 1820, 

 regular notes, printed from engraved plates, prepared by Mavrick, a Boston engraver, 

 were issued. These notes, as the treasurer writes in 1825, were extensively counterfeited. 

 In this letter he states that there are many coianterfeiters in Boston ; and, after asking 

 that a stamp with special ink be sent him, inquires if any paper, especially made for 

 bank notes, so as not to be easily imitated, could be procured.' This Act was amended 

 or supplemented by later Acts, as necessity required, providing for the redemption of the 

 old notes, issuing new ones or for increasing the issue. Montgomery Martin reports that, 

 in 1836, these notes had driven all gold coin out of the country, and that the amount of 

 treasury bills in circulation, chiefly one pound notes, reached <£6'7,644 ; besides this there 

 were i;54,991 in bills of the Halifax Banking Company, and a like amount the issite of 

 private firms, bringing the total paper circulation of the province up to $700,000.* 



But as these unauthorized coppers continued to be imported in ever increasing quan- 

 tities, the supply became so excessive that small change was looked upon as a nviisance. 

 In 1817, an Act, to remedy this state of affairs, was passed, making it illegal to import or 

 further circulate "base and counterfeit halfpence."^ More judgment was exercised in 

 framing this Act than that of 1787, for, by it, provision was made to import a regular pro- 

 vincial copper coinage. The same year an order in council '' was passed appointing commis- 

 sioners to carry out the provisions of the Act, but nothing seems to have been done until 1823, 

 when the Provincial Treasurer wrote to the agents of the Province, at Liverpool, ordering 

 a coinage of 400.000 halfpenny tokens to be struck for the province.'"' The design, 

 described in the Act. which states that the coins should bear on one side the Royal arms 

 and on the other the great seal of the Province, was rejected and a new one chosen with- 

 out any other apparent authority than that of the Treasurer. This called for the head of 

 the King on the obverse and a " handsome thistle " on the reverse. Thus has an emblem, 

 found on the ancient coins of Old Scotia, become the chief characteristic of the coins of 

 the New Scotia across the water. The correspondence shows that in striking off such a 

 large number of coins many pairs of dies had to be engraved." This fact has been 

 established by the number of varieties, of this date, discovered by mumismatists. In 

 preparing these dies more than one engraver seems to have been employed, for different 

 portraits of the King, some young, others older, have been noted on these coins, each of 

 which differs from that delineated on the ordinary English coins of G-eorge IV. On all 

 varieties the name of the province is incorrectly inscribed ; for, while it should be writ- 

 ten as two words, on some it appears as one and on others as a compound word connected 

 by a hyphen. The mistake was rectified on subsequent coinages. This order, sent early 

 in May, was not delivered until late in November. On the 29th of that month the 



' Appendix III. 



* Appendix V, r. 



' Statistics of the Colonies, London, 1S39, page 229. 



* Appendix IV. 



^ Appendix V, a. 

 •^ Appendix V, b. 

 ' Appendix Y, d. 



