The torture of Louise Caderon, Trinidad, 1801

Coloured etching by J Swaine, publisher unknown, 1806 (c).

Brigadier-General Thomas Picton was Governor of Trinidad, a Spanish dependency which had surrendered to Britain in 1797. In December 1801, he ordered the torture of a thirteen year old, mixed-race girl called Louisa (or Luisa) Calderon. The horrific torture, a version of a British military punishment called 'picketing', was used in an attempt to force her to confess to being an accomplice in a robbery. Louisa was suspended from her left wrist by a rope that was attached to the ceiling using a pulley. She was lowered so that her bare right foot was only able to rest on a sharp spike. The girl's left foot and right wrist were tied together. She was left in this agonising position for between 53 and 54 minutes. When she did not confess, the torture was repeated the next day until she passed out from the pain. When the torture produced a false confession, she was imprisoned for eight months in a space so small that she had to remain standing upright in it.

On 24 February 1806, Picton was tried at the Court of the King's Bench for the torture of Louisa. The prosecution asserted that his actions, 'sullied the British character, always so famed for its humanity.' Picton was found guilty but never sentenced. He claimed that the torture was permitted under Spanish law and the verdict was partially reversed in a retrial in 1808. Picton was killed during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.