action, being sent out for the purpose to the seat of war. As time went on senior officers began to accumulate many medals, since they received one for each great battle or siege; and the authorities deemed it advisable to issue no more than one medal to an officer, engraving upon it subsequently the names of all the general actions at which he was present. Presently a fresh difficulty arose: the actions became too numerous to admit of their names being engraved on the limited space of the medal; so, eventually, in 1813, regulations concerning the issue of gold medals were finally approved. It was then laid down that an officer should wear only one gold medal, upon which should be engraved the first action in which he was engaged; that for the second and third action he should receive gold clasps, inscribed with the names of the actions. The fourth action entitled the officer to the Gold Cross, upon which were engraved all four actions, and which was to be worn in substitution of the gold medal and clasps previously received; and gold clasps were added to the ribbon of the gold cross for each subsequent action after the original four. As far as regimental officers were concerned, the commanding officer of a full battalion present in an action for which a commemorative medal was struck[79] was usually recommended for the smaller gold medal (or clasp if he was already in possession of the medal), even though he might have been a major temporarily in command. As a rule, no other regimental officer received the medal for services performed as such, but occasionally a major or a captain was given the decoration for some particularly brilliant service, for which nowadays he would be awarded the V.C. or the D.S.O. But anything like a general distribution of medals to every one engaged was not given a thought; in fact the idea of wearing medals at all was so new that the majority of officers and men of the army regarded such things as far beyond their reach; and it was not until after the issue of a silver medal to all ranks of the army present at Waterloo, that Peninsular veterans began to consider themselves slighted. Yet for upwards of thirty years they agitated in vain, and only in 1848 was justice done to them by the issue of a silver medal, with clasps. Probably, by that time, the greater number of these brave men had passed away, for, between 1808 and 1848, thousands had been killed in action, died of wounds or of disease contracted on active service, died in afterlife from the effects of exposure and hardships during long years of campaigning, or died of old age.