[260] It should not be forgotten that Picton, no less than Craufurd, was at this time living down an old disaster. But Picton’s misfortune had not been military. It was the celebrated case of _Rex_ v. _Picton_. He had been tried for permitting the use of torture to extract evidence against criminals while governor of the newly conquered island of Trinidad, and convicted, though Spanish law (which was still in force in Trinidad) apparently permitted of the practice. After this Picton was a marked man. The story of Luisa Calderon, the quadroon girl who had been tortured by ‘picketing,’ had been appearing intermittently in the columns of every Whig paper for more than three years. The celebrated commander of the Light Division was at this time well known for his ability, but reckoned rather an unlucky soldier. He had entered the army so far back as 1779, and had seen service in every quarter of the globe, yet in 1809 was only a colonel. This was the more astounding since he was one of the few scientific soldiers in the British army when the Revolutionary War broke out. He had spent some time at Berlin in 1782, studying the tactics of the army of Frederick the Great, and had translated into English the official Prussian treatise on the Art of War. His knowledge of German, a rare accomplishment in the British army at the end of the eighteenth century, caused him to be given the post of military attaché at Coburg’s head quarters in 1794, and he followed the Austrian army through all the disasters of that and the two following years. Again in 1799 he went out to take the same post at the head quarters of the army of Switzerland, but quitted it to serve on the staff of the Duke of York, during the miserable Dutch expedition of that same year. He seemed destined to witness nothing but disasters, and though he was known to have done his duty with admirable zeal and energy in every post that he occupied, promotion lingered. Probably his caustic tongue and fiery temper were his hindrances, but it seems astonishing that he took twenty-six years to attain the rank of colonel, though he was not destitute of political influence, having friends and relatives in Parliament, and even in the Ministry[261]. In 1801 he was a disappointed man, thought of retiring from the army, and, having accepted a nomination borough, sat in the Commons for five years. In 1805 he was at last made a colonel, and in the following year went on active service with the expedition which, sent originally to the Cape, was distracted in 1807 to the unhappy Buenos Ayres campaign. This was the zenith of his misfortunes; it was he who, placed in charge of a light brigade by the incapable Whitelocke, was thrust forward into the midst of the tangled streets of Buenos Ayres, surrounded in the convent of San Domingo, and forced to capitulate for lack of support. At the ensuing court-martial he was acquitted of all blame, but the fact that he had surrendered a