Inhuman torture!! Fairburn's edition of the trial of Thomas Picton, late Governor of Trinidad and Colonel of the 54th Regiment of Foot, for torturing Louisa Calderon in the island of Trinidad in the month of December, 1801 ... Which was tried at the Court of King's-Bench, Westminster on Monday, Feb. 24, 1806 before Lord Ellenborough & a special jury / Taken in short-hand.

  • Thomas Picton
Date:
[1806?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inhuman torture!! Fairburn's edition of the trial of Thomas Picton, late Governor of Trinidad and Colonel of the 54th Regiment of Foot, for torturing Louisa Calderon in the island of Trinidad in the month of December, 1801 ... Which was tried at the Court of King's-Bench, Westminster on Monday, Feb. 24, 1806 before Lord Ellenborough & a special jury / Taken in short-hand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    stand upright, and there remained for the space of ejgfot months, until a short time previous to the arrival of Colonel Fullarton, by whom she was liberated, and brought to England. [The learned Counsel here produced a drawing in water- colours, in which the situation of the sufferer, &c. was de- scribed. He then proceeded:] It appears to me, that the case, on the part of the prosecu- tion, will be complete when these facts are established in evi- dence; but I understand I am to be told, that though the highest authority in this country could not practise this on the humblest individual, yet, that by the laws of Spain it can be perpetrated in the island of Trinidad. I shall venture to assert, that if it were written in characters impossible to be misunderstood, that if it were the acknowledged law of Trini- dad, it could be no justification of a British Governor. No- thing could vindicate such a person but the law of imperious necessity, to which we must all submit. It was his duty to impress upon the minds of the people of that colony, the great advantages they would derive from the benign influence of British jurisprudence; and that in con- sequence of being received within the pale of this Government, torture would be for ever banished from the island. It is, therefore, not sufficient for him to establish this sort of apology; it is, required of him to shew, that he complied with the insti- tutions under the circumstances of irresistible necessity. This Governor ought to have been aware, that the torture is not known in England; and that it never will be, never can be, tolerated in this country, The rack is utterly unknown to the law of England, though once, when the Dukes of Essex and Suffolk, and other Ministers of Henry VI. had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom, a9 the rule of Government, for a begin- ning t hereof they erected a rack for torture, which was called in derision the Duke of Essex's daughter, and still remains in the Tower of London, where it was occasionally used as an engine of State, not of law, more than once in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. But when upon the assassination of Vil- Uers Duke of Buckingham by Felton, it was proposed in the Privy Council to put the assassin to the rack, in order to dis- cover his accomplices, the Judges, being consulted, declared unanimously, to their owu honour, and the honour of the En- hsh law, thai no such proceeding wet? allowable bit the laws.of