Sir Thomas Picton – Welsh hero

THE protesters and journalists against Sir Thomas Picton’s monument twist and take the history out of context to suit their own agenda, which amounts to a pack of uninformed lies.

These memorials to Picton are listed historic monuments and commemorate not only Picton, but the Welshmen who gave their lives to free Europe. The memorials must stay where they are.

Sir Thomas Picton, Wales’ greatest soldier and hero was killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He was Wellington’s greatest general. Picton’s 5th Division helped to win the battle of Waterloo.

Unbeknown to these protesters, it was the 5th Division which plugged the gap, and Picton gave his life saving the day.

If Britain had lost that battle, which they nearly did, Napoleon would have ruled Europe and the abolition of slavery would have been stopped for ever.

It is interesting to note that it was the Duke of Wellington, as the Ambassador to France, who asked the King of France to agree to abolish slavery in France and its colonies. Inadvertently it was Sir Thomas Picton who helped to free the slaves.

The Arab African slave trade existed 300 years or more before the Atlantic Slave Trade, and moved more slaves into the Middle East than any other trade. There would not have been a slave trade if it had not been for the Arab and African slave traders gathering slaves in the interior of Africa. These traders took the slaves to the coast of Africa to be sold. There were Arab and African kingdoms and tribes who fought the British for 90 years, and refused to stop the slave trade.

Britain should be thanked for abolishing slavery.

John Wynne Hopkins Llanelli