5 Dollars = 1 Pound-5 Shillings

The Bank of Montreal was already the dominant commercial bank in British North America by the 1840s, and this note reflects the dual-denomination reality of Canadian commerce at the time — sterling and dollars circulating side by side, with the conversion fixed at four dollars to the pound. The numeral underprint, a relatively new security technique at the time, was among the innovations Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Co. were actively promoting to colonial banks wary of counterfeiting.

Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Co. would later merge into the American Bank Note Company in 1858. Notes from this transitional period of Canadian private banking are appreciably scarcer than later Dominion-era issues.