[mclachlan] presidential ADDRESS 57 



the King's bust and a similar figure of Britannia or a harp for reverse, 

 without any inscription. Many varieties were struck from dies more 

 or less worn and rusted, some of them so much so as to be beyond all 

 recognition; and in one case a worn and rusted die was employed, 

 conjointly with the discarded die of a United States trade token, to 

 strike an additional supply producing a strange mule variety. 



These show that people accept almost anything as money, so long 

 as its currency remains unquestioned; and that, when these coins, 

 which were a source of great profit to the issuers, were put into cir- 

 culation in such vast quantities as to become a burden to traders 

 and to form the only currency of the Province, they were suddenly 

 rejected and, based on neither Government nor a private guarantee, 

 turned out a complete loss to the holders. Strange as it may appear,' 

 the lead in this movement against the autonomous tokens was taken by 

 the market "hucksters" who, for the time being, became the self- 

 constituted censors of the currency. To overcome the want of 

 change caused by this demonotizing of the private coppers, the Bank 

 of Montreal, issued a coinage of un sou pieces in which the word "sous" 

 was erroneously inscribed thereon with the plural inflection. These 

 had no sooner become popular than an American exchange broker 

 named Dexter Chapin, having his office on St. Paul Street, Montreal, 

 imported large quantities of imitations of this sou piece, coined at 

 Belleville, New Jersey, on which the word sou was correctly written. 

 In a short time, the quantity became so excessive that they too were 

 rejected by the same censors, who, although illiterate, were able to 

 distinguish by their error, the genuine from the false. The same 

 broker issued a shin plaster or fractional note, which an error in the 

 gender, makes it read "une" instead of "icn chellin." 



Several French Canadian writers, on this subject, claim these 

 tokens as "LES SOUS DES PATRIOTES" but without foundation, 

 as may be perceived from the facts above stated, save that a sou was 

 issued by La Banque du Peuple, bearing a wreath of five maple leaves, 

 among which was surreptitiously inserted a star of hope and a Phrygian 

 cap of liberty. From this the coin has ever since been named the 

 "Rebellion Token." 



During this period four Montreal firms and a Quebec one struck 

 coins bearing their names. There was that of T.S. Brown and Co. 

 Mr. Brown who was a leader in the uprising of 1837, and a general at 

 St. Charles, was given by his opponents the sobriquet of "Copper 

 Tommy" which clung to him for many years afterwards. Another 

 token that of Thomas and William Molson brings us back to the days 

 when the Molsons were Montreal's most enterprising citizens, one 

 issued by R. W. Owen commemorates the founder of the first Canadian 



