Abstract
As if he were walking through London’s Pall Mall, Thomas Picton regularly took an evening stroll to the sea fort near Marine Square to hear the evening gun shoot off its salute. It was a curious institution — introduced by the British and fired in the direction of Venezuela, as if to remind the Spanish that the British were still there. To many of Picton’s subjects, it was just another habit that the invaders had brought with them.
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Notes
James Epstein, ‘The Politics of Colonial Sensation: The Trial of Thomas Picton and the Cause of Louisa Calderon’, American Historical Review, 112(3) (2007), pp. 712–41;
V.S. Naipaul, The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History (Picador, London, 2001, from the original published by Andre Deutsch, 1969);
Bridget Brereton, A History of Modern Trinidad 1783–1962 (Heinemann, Exeter, 1981).
James Milette, The Genesis of Crown Colony Government: Trinidad 1783–1810 (Moko Enterprises, Port of Spain, 1970), Part 2, ‘The Vanguard Society’, pp. 67–159.
Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials, Deposition of Francisco de Castro, pp. 236–40, and Deposition of Vallot, pp. 277–9. See also Deposition of Raphael Chando (spelt ‘Shando’ in the transcript), pp. 813–17; Bartolome de Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin Classics, London, 1992).
Picton was charged under 42 G III, c. 58, the Criminal Justice Act, which modified the earlier Act 11 & 12 Wm 3, c. 12, providing that any person in His Majesty’s service abroad who commits an offence in exercise of his official duties may be tried in England. Picton was the first colonial official tried under this new statute. See Kenneth Roberts-Wray, Commonwealth and Colonial Law (Praeger, New York, 1966), pp. 312–13.
John William Cole, Memoirs of British Generals Distinguished During the Peninsular War, 1807–1814 (Richard Bentley, London, 1856), p. 15.
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© 2012 Kit Candlin
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Candlin, K. (2012). The Torture of Louisa Calderon. In: The Last Caribbean Frontier, 1795–1815. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030818_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030818_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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