The Trial of Governor T. Picton, for Inflicting the Torture on Louisa Calderon, a Free Mulatto and One of His Britannic Majesty's Subjects, in the Island of Trinidad: Tried Before the Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough and a Special Jury, and Found Guilty : Taken in Short-hand During the Proceedings on the 24th of February, 1806

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Dewick & Clarke, Aldersgate-Street, 1806 - Criminal procedure - 126 pages
 

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Page 11 - ... beginning thereof they erected a rack for torture ; which was called, in derision, the Duke of Exeter'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.
Page 53 - But, when upon the assassination of Villiers, duke of Buckingham, by Felton, it was proposed in the privy council to put the assassin to the rack, in order to discover his accomplices; the judges, being consulted, declared unanimously, to their own honour and the honour of the English law, that no such proceeding was allowable by the laws of England.
Page 12 - I have incontestible evidence to shew this ingenuity of tyranny in a British governor, and the moment I produce the sanguinary order, the man is left absolutely without defence. The date of the transaction is removed at some distance. It was directed that a commission should conduct the affairs of the government, and among the persons appointed to this important situation, was colonel Fullarton. In the exercise of his duties in that situation, he...
Page 13 - I shall produce the victim of this enormity, whom, from the accident of my being conducted into s. room by mistake, I have myself seen. She will be. presented before you, and you will learn she at this moment bears upon her the marks of the barbarity of the defendant. In due time you will hear what my excellent and amiable friend near me has to offer in behalf of his client : I state the case at present with full confidence in your verdict...
Page 11 - The force of the muscles, and the sensibility of the nerves of an innocent person being given, it is required to find the degree of pain necessary to make him confess himself guilty of a given crime.
Page 7 - ... not form a more honourable connection. While she lived with Ruiz she was engaged in an intrigue with Carlos Gonzalez, the pretended friend of the former, who robbed him of a quantity of dollars. Gonzalez was apprehended, and she also, as some suspicion fell upon her in consequence of the affair. She was taken before the justice, as we, in our language, should denominate him, and, in his presence, she denied having...
Page 11 - The trial by rack is utterly unknown to the law of England, though once, when the dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, and other ministers of Henry VI. had laid a design to introduce the civil law into this kingdom, as the rule of government, for a beginning thereof, they erected a rack for torture, which was called in derision the- duke of Exeter'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...
Page 89 - In the same crimes for which the question is applicable to the delinquent, in the same it is applicable to the witness who varies or prevaricates in his evidence, or who denies the truth, or who refuses to declare it, there being a presumption that he knows it ; not being of those persons to whom the torment cannot be applied according to the law of Partida and its Gregorian glossary.
Page 7 - Calderon was of the tender age of ten or eleven years. At that early period, she had been induced to live •with a person of the name of Pedro Ruiz, as his mistress, and although it appears to us very singular, that she should sustain such a situation at that time of life, yet it is a fact, that, in this climate, women often become mothers at twelve years old, and are in a state of concubinage, if, from their condition, they cannot form a more...
Page 6 - Abercrombie, whose name •will ever incite gratitude and admiration, in the year 1797 ; and he entered into a stipulation, by which he conceded to the inhabitants the continuance of their laws, and appointed a new governor, until his majesty's pleasure should be known, or, in other words; until the king of England, in his paternal character, should extend to this new acquisition to his empire all the sacred privileges of the laws of England. I have the authority of the defendant himself for stating,...

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