been offered the right to keep their colours during surrender negotiations, such was the case with the colours of the 4th, 23rd, 24th and 34th regiments of foot who retained their colours after the 1782 surrender of Minorca. Despite the value placed on them colours were sometimes lost off the battlefield, the 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot (MacLeod's Highlanders) left them at their depot in Britain during the Peninsular War but could not find them upon their return; a light infantry regiment lost one colour in the post during the 19th century. The colours of units fighting in open order as light infantry were particularly vulnerable to attack and, as early as 1808, many such units did not carry their colours in the field. In battle the colours were sometimes sent to the rear if they were considered to be at risk or attracting too much enemy fire. Sometimes commanders considered the carrying of colours to be a hindrance to their units and ordered them left behind, as did General James Abercrombie during the 1758 Ticonderoga campaign. By the 1860s many infantry regiments posted on active service chose to leave their colours safely behind at their depots. After the loss of the colours of the 24th (The 2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot at the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana there were debates in parliament as to whether colours should continue to be carried in the field. These were renewed after the heavy casualties suffered by the colour party of the 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment of Foot at the 28 January 1881 Battle of Laing's Nek; British General Garnet Wolseley remarked that after this engagement any colonel that ordered the colours to be carried into action should be tried for the murders of the men lost carrying them. The action led to the Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers issuing instructions on 29 July that colours were no longer to be taken into the field. This was reinforced by a 2 March 1882 order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, the Duke of Cambridge, that regiments posted on active service leave their colours behind. The colours of the 58th at Laing's Nek became the last to be carried into battle and those of the 1st battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment the last to be taken on active service when they were at Alexandria in 1882. Units without colours Only the flags