Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and CuriositiesAnonymous
History
Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and Curiosities
Anonymous
Westminster Abbey
Over the north door is a magnificent monument to the memory of Admiral
WATSON, where you see, in the centre of a range of palm-trees, an elegant
figure of the Admiral in a Roman toga, with a branch of palm in his right
hand, receiving the address of a prostrate figure, representing the genius
of Calcutta, a place in the East Indies memorable for the imprisonment of
the English garrison in a black hole, where most of them perished, and
where those that survived were released by the Admiral, and the town
retaken from the Nabob, in January, 1757. On the other side is the figure,
in chains, of a native of Chandernagore, another place taken by the
Admiral the March following. On the front is this inscription:--"To the
memory of Charles Watson, Vice-Admiral of the White, Commander-in-Chief of
his Majesty's navy forces in the East Indies, who died at Calcutta, August
16, 1757, aged forty-four. The East India Company, as a grateful testimony
of the signal advantages which they obtained by his valour and prudent
conduct, caused this monument to be erected."--_Scheemakers, sculptor._
Against the wall, on a small tablet, is the bust of Sir WILLIAM SANDERSON,
Knt., with an inscription in Latin, showing that he was Gentleman of the
Bedchamber to Charles I.; and wrote the lives of Mary Queen of Scots,
James, and Charles I.: that he sustained great hardships from the tyranny
of the rebels; but that, having bravely surmounted all difficulties, he
lived to the age of ninety, and died July 15, 1676.
General GUEST.--On a base and pyramid of most beautiful marble, are the
first enrichments and busts that are to be seen in the whole church. The
inscription is short, but manly--"Sacred to those virtues that adorn a
Christian and a soldier, this marble perpetuates the memory of
Lieutenant-General Joshua Guest, who closed a service of sixty years, by
faithfully defending Edinburgh Castle against the rebels in 1745."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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