Contract for Erecting a Monument to the Memories of Captain Mosse and Captain Riou

SPCAA/CR/2/4

1804

This letter is mounted on cardboard along with two other documents.

These Articles of Agreement concern the construction of a monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral honouring Captain James Robert Mosse and Captain Edward Riou. The agreement is between the monument’s maker, Charles Rossi, and the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury under King George III and dated 1804. The Articles outline an agreement between Rossi and the Lords Commissioners concerning the monument’s specific purpose and proportions. The monument is to be built as a memorial to Captain Mosse of His majesty’s Ship Monarch and Captain Riou of His Majesty’s Ship Amazon, ‘who fell gloriously in the Naval Engagement of the Second day of April 1801 when a decisive Victory was obtained by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker over the Danish Fleet and Batteries which formed the line of defense at the entrance of the Harbour of Copenhagen’. The agreement details that all the materials of the monument be of the best statuary marble except for the Plinth which, according to the insturctions of the Surveyor of St Pauls, should be made of the best Portland Stone. The agreed upon dimensions are listed as eleven feet in width and twelve feet three inches in height with the figures of Fame and Genius to be seven feet eight inches high and the sarchophagus to be six feet long and three feet eight inches in height and the said monument and several other figures to be in every respect according to the plan approved upon. The completion of the monument is detailed as being within three years of the signed agreement and Rossi’s payment upon completionis listed as four thousand two hundred pounds. The agreement finally outlines the obligation of the Lords Commissioners to find and provide a proper place within St. Paul’s Cathedral for the constructed monument.

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SPCAA/CR/2/5, SPCAA/CR/2/6, 2460