in Lower Canada cooperated in issuing tokens to improve their reliability. One of the tokens they produced had the arms of Montreal on one side, and an image of a habitant on the other. These tokens were nicknamed "Papineaus", named after Louis-Joseph Papineau, who was the leader of the 1837 rebellion in Lower Canada and who was well known for wearing habitant clothing almost as uniform. These tokens are more commonly known today as Habitant tokens. The two major fur-trading companies, the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company also issued trade tokens, which were used in their extensive trading networks. The Hudson Bay Company tokens were based on the "Made beaver" pelts which had been used as a medium of exchange. From the British pound to the Canadian dollar: 1825–1867 During the mid-19th century, there was a policy disagreement between the British and the colonial governments. The British wanted all the colonies to continue to use sterling, to facilitate trade within the Empire. The Canadian colonies, both in the east and British Columbia, increasingly favoured linking their currencies to the US dollar, given the strong local trade links. Eventually, the local trade won out and the Canadian colonies migrated to currencies linked to the US dollar. One feature of the regulation of coinage at this time was fixed exchange rates. The colonial and imperial legislation set fixed exchange rates for coins, often based on their weight as bullion. British Order-in-council of 1825 The issue first arose in 1825, when the British government passed an imperial Order-in-council which was designed to encourage the circulation of sterling coinage throughout the British Empire, including the Canadian colonies. The Order-in-council actually had the reverse effect in the Canadas, driving out what little sterling specie coinage did actually circulate. This was because the rating of one Spanish dollar to four shillings and four pence sterling that was contained in the order-in-council did not represent a realistic comparison between the silver content in the Spanish dollar as compared to the gold content in the British gold sovereign. When Britain passed remedial legislation in 1838, the British North American colonies were excluded from its provisions due to recent rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. Colonial pounds Each of the colonies had their own currencies. Although modelled on the British system of pounds-shillings-pence, the exact value of each currency could vary, depending on the legislation of