25 Dollars = 25 Piastres

Army Bills were a wartime fiscal instrument, not a bank product. Authorised under the Army Bills Act of 1813, they were issued by the British military administration in the Canadas to fund the War of 1812 against the United States, at a time when specie was almost entirely absent from circulation. The bills bore interest — the smaller denominations at a fixed rate — and were accepted for government payments, which underpinned their credibility in a colony with no chartered bank until 1817.

The bilingual denomination pairing reflects the practical reality of Lower Canada's population. Printed in Quebec by order of the Commissariat, they were eventually redeemed at par, one of the few wartime paper issues in North American history to be fully honoured without depreciation.