Life in Canada

by Thomas Conant

A manufactory of base coin in the Province of Quebec—A clever penman—Incident at a trial—The gang of forgers broken up—“Stump-tail money”—Calves or land?—Ashbridge’s hotel, Toronto—Attempted robbery by Indians—The shooting of an Indian dog and the consequences.

I referred in the last chapter to the Spanish milled dollars in which military services were paid for. Mexican dollars were also in vogue, and a few years previous to the American War of 1812, some enterprising New England counterfeiters, fancying the densely-wooded portion of Lower Canada, near the state lines, would afford a secure base for their operations, emigrated to our lower province. These Mexican silver dollars were used as a currency for small moneys almost to the exclusion of British coins. The reason for this was because these Mexican unmilled dollars were of pure silver, almost without alloy, and were worth, intrinsically, rather more than their face value. In these forests the counterfeiters set up their presses and dies, and succeeded in making Mexican dollars so very nearly like the genuine ones that they passed unquestioned. Indeed, there was no limit to the amount these fellows could produce, or as to the amount of wealth they could accumulate thereby; that is to say, so far as wealth could be accumulated in those early days among forest fastnesses. However, this band had good houses constructed, and as well furnished as they could be at that early day. One of the traditions about them is that they were in the habit of throwing a dollar into the spittoon when they wanted it cleaned, which perhaps shows they had all the hired help that money could in those days give them. They appear to have lived a free-booting sort of life and to have enjoyed such luxuries as money could command. So expert had they become at the business that paymasters in the American army actually crossed over the lines by stealth, through the woods, and bought these Mexican dollars from the counterfeiters to pay the American troops with. This is a fact, anomalous as it may seem, and no doubt these paymasters reaped rich harvests by these transactions. As an illustration of the cleverness of these counterfeiters I will note that at one time they actually passed four thousand of their coins on one of the banks in Montreal.

We may, therefore, assume that as counterfeiters they had arrived at considerable perfection. The flooding of the Province of Quebec with these Mexican dollars somewhat disarranged the even flow of trade transactions.

On the close of the American war, however, these Mexican dollars were gradually taken out of circulation. The genuine ones were mostly taken to England to be recoined into British shillings and sixpences. This altered state of affairs caused these counterfeiters to pause in their career, and they ceased to produce the Mexican dollars for fear they might be traced out. Counterfeiting bank-notes was what they next turned their hands to. In those days the “greenback” had not been invented, the engravings on the bills were not very elaborate, and they found some one among them who could cut the die plate of a bill. Thus far they had got on well, but the signatures to the bills presented an almost insuperable obstacle. That oft-repeated remark, that “the old fellow always helps his own,” was true in their case at least. One of their number was found so clever with the pen that he could imitate the signatures to perfection. It is asserted that this signer claimed as his share for affixing the signatures a full share in all the band’s proceeds, and he was to do nothing else at all. The other members were to do all the work and he only did the writing, and lived like a gentleman in what had then become a small village in Quebec, near the province line. He had a fine house, carriages and servants; held several offices of trust, and had even rare and costly bound books in his library. Indeed, he seemed to be a person of culture in every way, and no one for a moment suspected him of any complicity in such a nefarious business as counterfeiting.

To show how clever he was as a penman, I will tell this anecdote by way of illustration. Some twenty thousand dollars’ worth of promissory notes had been sued in some court in the State of Vermont. The signature on these notes was disputed by the reputed maker, and a defence set up that they were forgeries. This important case was thoroughly defended by the ablest counsel of the day, and yet the case seemed likely to go against the maker of the notes. Happening to get a hint, this attorney for the defence quietly asked all the attorneys in the court to write their names on a half-sheet of foolscap, which he produced, torn carelessly from the other half-sheet.

Each one wrote his name. Then this attorney for the defence brought the signatures to this person who did the bank-note signing in Quebec. On the other half-sheet of foolscap this more than expert penman reproduced in exact fac-simile the attorneys’ names. Back into court he came with the two half-sheets of foolscap, one containing the genuine signatures and the other the forged ones, but both sheets alike in every respect, even as to jagged edges, where torn asunder, and every other particular.

Each signing attorney was then put in the witness box and asked to swear to his signature. Not one of them could do it. This fact threw doubts in the minds of the jury as to the genuineness of the signature of the notes, and the defendant got a verdict of “not guilty.”

As the country continued to be flooded with these notes, the Government finally began tracing their issue to the fountain head, and suddenly and without warning made a descent upon this respectable citizen’s fine house. Not a scrap could be found to incriminate him, and the searchers were about to leave with apologies, when, happening to look in the attic, they found a single unused die, which one of the gang had thoughtlessly left there.

The finding of this die of course caused his arrest, and he and two others were put on trial for their lives. Forgery in that day in Quebec merited the death penalty of the law. They had moved to Canada, however, for protection, and even in this instance Canada did not fail to protect them still. They had forged only notes of the state banks of the United States, and it seems that our law could not fairly get hold of them for forging the notes of a foreign country, and they got off scot-free. But the prosecution broke them up and they fled, having lost their pseudo-respectability.

It is asserted that this expert penman and cultivated man afterwards migrated to the United States, became an inmate of nearly all the penitentiaries the United States then possessed, and finally died in one of them. So, in this instance, as ever, the way of the transgressor was hard, although seemingly so fair for so long a time.