220 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



off on an unsuspecting public together with another base brass token 

 equally rude, dated 1830, bearing the head of George IV on one side 

 and a harp on the other. The latter does not appear to be an imitation 

 but an original design. A number of clandestine mints for the coin- 

 age of these tokens were set up not only in Montreial and Quebec, but in 

 some of the more rural districts from which the issue became so enor- 

 mous that copper formed the bulk of the circulation. The receipts of 

 merchants in this currency at this time often reached from two to 

 three hundred dollars a day. About twenty-five varieties are known of 

 each. This coinage, varied with a sprinkling of the tokens of two firms, 

 J. Shaw & Co., of Quebec, and T. S. Brown & Co., of Montreal, and 

 X'ontinued to be received as accepted change until 1836. At that time 

 the currency is described in a memoir " On the Miserable State of the 

 Currency of the British North American Provinces " as follows : — 

 " The miserable coppers which are now in circulation consisting of 

 base coin and tokens of all descriptions and frequently pieces of sheet 

 copper which have never been impressed with any die and do not 

 weigh more than a fourth or a half of the weight of an English 

 halfpenny." ^ 



Although innocent traders were the greatest sufferers, none of 

 them made any move to improve matters. It was therefore left to the 

 market hucksters to take the initiative and they became for a time the 

 regulators of the copper currency. From day to day they extended 

 their censorship until few if any capper coins were left in circulation. 



At this point the Bank of Montreal came to the rescue of the 

 people and imported a quantity of " Bank tokens " from Birmingham. 

 These were well executed and therefore a great imipirovement on the 

 miserable brass pieces to which they succeded; and of full weight too. 

 On one side they were impressed with a bouquet emblematic of the 

 three Kingdoms with ears of wheat as indicative of Agriculture, Can- 

 ada's chief industry, and with maple leaves as representative of Can- 

 ada. This is the first oooasio'n on a coin that the maple leaf was em- 

 ployed as a Canadian emblem. The value was given in French and, 

 by some mistake of the Birmingham makers, in the iplural un sous. 

 The name of the Bank is wanting, the inscription being: " Bank token 

 Montreal." x\s this was not satisfactory to the people, a new token 

 was orde-red like the first in every particular, even to the error sous, 

 except that the inscription was changed to '' Bank of Montreal token." 



^ " Memoir on the Miserable State of the Currency of the British North 

 American Provinces submitted by R. Carter to Lord Glenelg." Canadian 

 Archives, vol. 24-1, page 96. 



