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48 Livres
| Issuer | Trésorier des Colonies (Treasury of the Colonies), Quebec |
|---|---|
| Year | 1753-1758 |
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| Currency | Livre (colonial) |
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| Obverse description | Unilateral card money issue inscribed at upper centre with the header 'COLONIES 1753' and the denomination '48' at upper left. The body of the note carries a handwritten and partially engraved text in French stating the obligation of the King to reimburse the bearer the sum of forty-eight livres, referencing the Treasury submission and dated at Quebec, '6 Janvier 1753', with a manuscript signature below. A handwritten serial number 'N° 9441' appears in the upper portion, and a tally notation in Roman numerals is visible in the lower margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 48 COLONIES 1753 Dépenses générales. N° 9441 IL sera tenu compte par le Roi, au mois d'octobre prochain, de la somme de Quarante huit livres valeur en la soûmission du Trésorier, restée au bureau du contrôle. A Québec, le 6 Janvier 1753 |
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| Comments |
Card money — not this note, but its predecessor — had already collapsed once in New France by the time these livres were issued. The Trésorier des Colonies operated under chronic underfunding from Paris, and the 1753 emission was part of a sustained attempt to keep the colonial economy liquid while metropolitan reimbursements arrived months late, if at all. The Seven Years' War was only three years off, and French fiscal commitment to the colony was already fraying visibly.
New France paper from this period survives in tiny numbers. The colony's financial records were largely dispersed or destroyed after the 1760 British capitulation, and notes that weren't redeemed — many weren't, at full value — simply disappeared with the administration that issued them.