The petition was rejected by the vote only of the speaker _pro tem._ (William Blake), the House dividing equally; and a further sum of £3000 was voted for a “proper building” to contain it, in Spanish Town, making an expenditure of £8200. The total cost of Jamaica’s tribute to the great hero (including the public offices which form wings to the colonnade, and £3650 for the purchase of the necessary land) was £30,918 (currency). This grant for a “proper building” was ill-spent. Memorial statues should be erected “plain for all folk to see.” It is difficult to get a good view of Rodney, placed as he is beneath a low-roofed temple which, fitting as it might be for a statue of Jupiter or Venus, ill accords with the breezy life of a sailor; and if the good people of Kingston had been supported by the Assembly, Rodney’s statue would certainly have looked better in the centre of the Parade. When it was in Kingston temporarily from 1872 to 1889 it was on that barest of bare pedestals at the bottom of King street (to which Lord Metcalfe has once more been relegated) and lacked subsidiary adornment altogether. Although West, in 1771, broke through tradition in painting in the matter of classic costume, and dared, to the great advantage of Art, to represent Wolfe and his soldiers in their own dress; and Pine painted Rodney himself and his officers as they appeared on board the _Formidable_ in the dress they wore, in sculpture the result was slower, and Rodney was clothed by Bacon in the dress of a Roman, as a matter of course; the fondness on the part of sculptors for classic costume dying hard. Gibson, it is said, refused in the middle of the nineteenth century to execute his statue of Sir Robert Peel unless he was allowed to clothe him in a toga. In general treatment Rodney’s statue is not unlike the Augustus Cæsar of the Capitol. He is clad in a short-sleeved tunic (of which the part that should cover the body is by artistic licence omitted), and wears his paludamentum (or cloak) over his right arm, He has no greaves, but wears sandals on his feet. From a torques, or necklace (usually worn by Oriental barbarians) is suspended a Medusa’s head. His left hand, holding a sword-hilt, rests on the ordinary oblong shield of the Romans. His right arm is outstretched, and in his hand is a baton. On the front panel of the pedestal is the following inscription: GEORG. BRYDG. RODNEY BARON RODNEY NAVAL. PRAEL. VICTORI PRID. ID. APRILIS A.D., MDCCLXXXII. BRITANN. PACEM REST. D.D.D. S.P.Q. JAMAICENSIS. Which may be rendered: