The London Highland Society decided in 1801 to award a medal to the officers and men of the 42nd Regiment who had rescued Lord Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in March of that year. The design of the reverse, in which a Highlander captures a French standard, with a crocodile to indicate the Egyptian setting, was commissioned by the Society from Benjamin West. The medals were not in fact issued, since it was determined that such honours could be conferred on regiments only by the King; a small number of impressions were presented ‘to individuals who had served the Society’.