I completely agree but I think the whole episode reveals something about the attitudes of people of "our era" which is quite shocking to the average military historian or wargamer. The law in Britain at that time was designed to vicously protect the rights and priviliges of the landed gentry. The sort of attitude by the ruling classes which triggered the French revolution in the first place.The British law of that time contained around 200 offences punishable by death for anyone over the age of seven. Most of these wouldn't merit a prison sentence today.The army was widely used to enforce these laws at home and in the colonies and a very strong culture of merciless law enforcement must have existed in the officer class of the time. It is generally accepted today that an army is hardly the most liberal agency for police work. Even the French army was very far from having a liberal attitude to law enforcement.
Picton was appointed govenor immediatly following the capture of the island from the French and there was a great deal of unrest, political and criminal and he had an extremely small force at his diposal. Almost his first action was to summarily execute one of his own men for rape of a local woman. Hardly what today would be considered justice but giving an unequivocal message of his intended position and even handedness. I suppose it would be called zero tolerence today but set against the background of eighteenth century laws and the very real threat of invasion and/or rebellion. I assume that the feeling then was that any deviation from the full force of the law risked being taken as a sign of weakness and that could rapidly prove fatal. And the logic of the ruling class was always that, if they did not protect their vested interests, the lower classes would suffer even more from the collapse.
Furthermore, the very laudable desire to show leniency to juveniles still causes us problems today. In Britain, street gangs take children around with them to carry the weapons that would lead to heavy sentences if the older gang members were caught carrying them.
Best Regards,
Dave.