Note 42 — HISTORICAL RECORD OF THE SECOND BATTALION

Major-General Byng, the present General the Earl of Strafford, and Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, in consideration of his gallantry in the action of the 13th of December, 1813,—wherein he led his troops, under a most galling fire, to the assault of a strong height occupied in great force by the enemy, and having himself ascended the hill first with the Colour of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment of foot in his hand, he planted the Colour upon the summit, and drove the enemy (far superior in numbers) down the ridge to the suburbs of St. Pierre,—received the Royal Authority on the 7th of July, 1815, to bear the following honorable augmentation, namely, “Over the arms of the family of Byng, in bend sinister, a representation of the Colour of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment,” and the following crest, namely, “Out of a mural crown an arm embowed, grasping the Colour of the aforesaid THIRTY-FIRST regiment, and, pendent from the wrist by a riband, the Gold Cross presented to him by His Majesty’s command, as a mark of his royal approbation of his distinguished services,” and in an escrol above the word “Mouguerre,” being the name of a height near the hamlet of St. Pierre.