All kinds of things were tried to retain the coins on the colony's territory, but none succeeded. The Governor found solution. The boat that brings the troop's pay is late. The Governor decides to issue fiat money, using playing cards. A break occurred in 1685. The annual boat that brought goods (including a load of metallic coins) from France usually came in the summer, but this year he only reached Canada in January. The coins were meant to pay the troops, and thus the soldiers had waited for 8 months! The Governor, having tried everything possible, like feeding the soldiers on credit, letting them work for peasants...) decided to requisition all decks of playing cards in the colony. He then had each card cut in quarters, wrote a monetary value on each, signed and stamped them. Then he let it be known that these cards had to be accepted in payment for anything that was for sale in the colony, without any raise in prices. The soldiers were paid with these cards, and the merchants accepted. When the boat arrived each and every card was exchanged at par against metallic coins in a week. This was an emergency solution, and had worked fine. All the cards were destroyed after the conversion, and life returned to normal. The Governor used this trick every year, issuing more and more cards each time. But the problem was recurrent, and soon the story began all over again, and repeated itself year after year, notwithstanding the "strong disapproval" of the King. Sometimes paper was used instead of playing cards (which had become hard to find), and this system could have given Canada an efficient monetary system, were it not for the excessive emissions. After 1690, the card emission had become annual. Around 1706 the exchange of cards against coins was already random, the King being less generous with this colony that brought him so little. Several years of arrears grew, and cards exchanged at a third of their nominal value, when merchants accepted them altogether! Emissions multiplied, leading to 400% inflation in 1713. After several unsuccessful attempts to convert the outstanding cards in real values, the governor almost stopped the emissions of new cards. French Canada began to suffocate by lack of money (as a mean of exchange, not as standing for resources). People tried to cope with credit, bills of exchange and other IOU's. In fact money was so badly needed that in 1729 merchants sent a petition to the king to reintroduce the playing card money.