Design for the memorial in Westminster Abbey commemorating the lives of Captains William Bayne (1730-1782), William Blair (d. 1782) and Lord Robert Manners (1758-1782)

The present watercolour depicts a tall monument of white and coloured marble that stands in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. Known as The Three Captains memorial, it commemorates Royal Navy Captains William Bayne, William Blair and Lord Robert Manners who were killed on 9 April 1782 during the four day Battle of the Saintes under Admiral Sir George Rodney, as part of the American War of Independence, off the coast of Guadeloupe and Dominica in the West Indies. A figure of Fame surmounts the column and below is Neptune and Britannia with a lion. The monument was not finished until 1793 and cost £4,000.
Bayne, through whose family the present drawing has passed down, was born in Edinburgh on 4 November 1730, and became a lieutenant in 1749, serving in North American waters and in the West Indies, until his untimely death on the ship Alfred.