2 Livres 5 Sous British occupation

Guadeloupe changed hands repeatedly during the Napoleonic Wars — French, British, Swedish, French again — and the 1813 British occupation coinage was struck under Governor General Sholto Charles Douglas to address a chronic shortage of specie on the island. Local commerce had been grinding along on a patchwork of foreign coins, cut pieces, and countermarked currency for years before Douglas authorized this issue.

The denomination itself is a hybrid, combining the French livre system still in daily use among the population with British administrative oversight — a practical compromise rather than a political statement. British control ended the following year when the island was returned to France under the Treaty of Paris.