statute expressed the hope that the decimal currency could "...hereafter be advantageously made common to all the Provinces of British North America, as being simple and convenient in itself, and well calculated to facilitate their commercial intercourse with other parts of this continent". The authorities in London delayed implementation of the act on technical grounds. A related statute passed in the same session continued the statutory exchange rates for British and US currency used in Canada. As a compromise between basing the currency on sterling or on the US dollar, in 1853 the Parliament of the Province of Canada enacted a statute to introduce the gold standard into the province, based on both the British gold sovereign and the American gold eagle coins. The gold sovereign was legal tender at a rating of £1 equal to $4.8666 Canadian, and the $10 eagle was rated at $10 Canadian. No coinage was provided for under the 1853 act. Sterling coinage was made legal tender, and all other silver coins were demonetized, although they continued to circulate. Dollar transactions were legalized. Since the New Brunswick and Canadian statutes had adopted the same conversion rates, their two currencies were now compatible, fixed at par with the US dollar. The trend towards decimalization continued, and in 1857 the Province of Canada provided that all public accounts were to be kept in dollars and cents. The next year, 1858, the first Canadian decimal coins were released. Minted at the Royal Mint in London, they were issued in the name of "Canada", with an effigy of Queen Victoria on the obverse. The coins were in denominations of one-cent, five-cents, ten-cents, twenty-cents and fifty-cents. New Brunswick In 1852, the year following the Toronto conference, New Brunswick passed a similar statute as the Canadian statute, establishing "pounds, shillings and pence" as the government unit of account, but also setting both British coinage and US coinage as legal tender. The statute also authorized the provincial government to obtain a new supply of coins. New Brunswick ordered a supply of coins from the Royal Mint in London in 1860, but because of the demand faced by the Mint, the first shipment of New Brunswick coins did not arrive until 1862. Nova Scotia In 1860, Nova Scotia adopted a system of decimalization, and set the exchange rates for British currency as well as other coins. The provincial government was authorised to obtain