Part 15

Jean Laffite and his companions attacked the Customs men, killing one man and wounding two others fatally. Nine of the officers were held as prisoners by the pirates while they proceeded with their auction as planned. It was reported that buyers came from many parts of Louisiana. They bought all the slaves that were put on the block. And the Laffites considered the auction a great success.

The Collector wrote to Governor Claiborne: “It is high time that the contrabandists, dispersed throughout the State, should be taught to respect our laws, and I hold it my duty to call on your excellency for a force adequate to the exigency of the case.”

Claiborne could have dispatched a state militia against the pirate gang, but he hesitated to do this because he already had had one embarrassing experience with the militia. He had ordered a company of troops to move against the Baratarians, but Jean Laffite had met this problem by the simple expedient of bribing the entire expeditionary force. It has been recorded that “the brave leaders of the Baratarians had spared their lives, loaded them with costly presents and had allowed them to return safely to New Orleans.”

Again Claiborne pleaded in a letter to the legislature for action, saying: “The evil requires a strong corrective. Force must be resorted to. These lawless men can alone be operated upon by their fears and the certainty of punishment. I have not been able to ascertain their numbers ... but they are represented to be from 300 to 500, perhaps more.... So numerous and bold are the followers of Laffite, and, I grieve to say it, such is the countenance afforded him by some of our citizens, to me unknown, that all efforts to apprehend this high offender have hitherto been baffled.” As is the history of many complaints to legislatures, the matter was referred to a committee, where it died quietly.

Failing again to get any action from the legislature, Claiborne resorted to another course. He arranged to have a grand jury, friendly to his views, chosen from the city’s merchants and bankers. Witnesses were called who, in the strictest secrecy, swore to knowledge of piratical acts by the Laffites and their men. Before the news of this grand jury’s meeting spread through the city, Pierre Laffite was arrested. He was taken to jail and bail was denied. Jean Laffite, when he heard of Pierre’s arrest, hurried secretly to the city to talk with friends about releasing his brother. But this time nothing could be done.

It was while Pierre was in jail, on September 3, 1814, that His Britannic Majesty’s brig Sophie sailed into the narrow strait off the island of Grande Terre and dropped anchor. A small boat was lowered and two officers were rowed ashore by sailors. The British were met on the beach by a tall, dark-haired man whom they asked to lead them to Monsieur Laffite. Their guide led them across the beach onto the porch of a breeze-swept house. And then the guide turned and said, “Messieurs, I myself am Laffite.” The visitors were Captain Lockyer from the Sophie and Captain McWilliams of the Royal Colonial Marines. They had brought a most unusual offer.

Laffite refused to discuss business until lunch had been served. They ate their lunch from silverplate. It was an excellent meal, the officers recalled, with fine wines and good conversation. When the meal was finished, the men lit cigars and then Laffite was ready to hear what they had to say. Captain Lockyer disclosed that he brought an offer from Admiral Sir William H. Percy, commanding the British squadron at Pensacola. In brief, the British were offering Laffite $30,000 if he would bring his ships, guns and men to the side of Britain in the war against the United States. Laffite asked them to leave the Admiral’s letters with him and to give him fifteen days in which to study the proposition. Then, he said, “I will be entirely at your disposal.”

But Jean Laffite, pirate and cutthroat though he was, had no intention of betraying the United States. He hastily wrote a letter to his friend Jean Blanque, in New Orleans. He enclosed the letters handed to him by the British, together with a personal message for Governor Claiborne. Laffite said in his letter to Blanque: “Our enemies exerted on my integrity a motive which few men would have resisted. They have represented to me a brother in irons, a brother who to me is very dear! of whom I can become the deliverer ... from your enlightenment will you aid me in a circumstance so grave.”

And then he enclosed this letter to be delivered to the Governor:

MonSieur:

... I offer to return to this State many citizens who perhaps have lost to your eyes that sacred title. I offer ... their efforts for the defense of the country.

This point of Louisiana that occupies great importance in the present situation, I offer myself to defend it ... I am the lost sheep who desires to return to the flock ... for you to see through my faults such as they are....

In case, MonSieur Le Gouverneur, your reply should not be favorable in my ardent wishes I declare to you that I leave immediately so not to be held to have cooperated with an invasion.... This cannot fail to take place, and puts me entirely on the judgment of my conscience.

I have the honor to be, MonSieur Le Gouverneur,

Laffite.

Jean Laffite had put loyalty to the United States before profit in this time of peril. But even as Captain Lockyer conferred with Laffite, Claiborne was going forward with plans for a land-sea operation against the pirate stronghold.

After receiving Laffite’s letter, Claiborne called his military advisers into conference. These were Major General Jaques Villere, Commodore Patterson of the U.S. Navy, and Colonel Ross of the regular U.S. Army. The questions they discussed were whether the documents sent by Laffite were genuine and whether the governor should enter into correspondence with Laffite. Villere thought the documents genuine and that the Governor should reply immediately to the Laffite letter. However, Ross and Patterson voted against Villere. The majority favored an attack on the pirate stronghold.

Peculiarly enough, the morning after this meeting at the Governor’s mansion, newspapers carried notices that Pierre Laffite had mysteriously escaped from jail. A notice was posted offering $1,000 reward for his capture.

Eight days after Laffite wrote to Claiborne, the Ross-Patterson expedition set out for Barataria. Three barges were loaded with men and ammunition. It left the levee at New Orleans before dawn and drifted silently downstream with the current. Near the mouth of the river, the barges joined forces with Colonel Ross’ fleet of six gunboats and the schooner Carolina. The pirate hideout on the islands of Grande Terre and Grande Isle was sighted on the early morning of September 16.

There were indications at first that the Baratarians were going to resist. They began placing cannon into position and arming themselves. But then apparently they saw the American flag on the approaching ships. They broke ranks and ran. Without firing a shot, the expeditionary force captured the pirate fleet, guns, and stores of merchandise valued at more than $500,000.

When news of the attack on Barataria was received in New Orleans, there was much criticism of the expedition. And there was even more indignation when it was learned that the expedition was launched after Laffite had offered his services and those of his companions to the government in the defense of New Orleans against the expected attack by the British.

The British bribe offer to Laffite came as General Andrew Jackson arrived in New Orleans to arrange for the defense of the city. Claiborne sent copies of Laffite’s documents to Jackson on the chance that they were genuine and contained military information which would be important. Jackson made it quite clear he wanted no traffic with “this hellish banditti” and he rebuked Claiborne for having permitted Laffite and his men in the past to visit the city.

At last Jean Laffite made a secret trip to see Jackson himself. There is no record of what went on between the two men and what was said in that conference. It became known that Laffite offered to put in Jackson’s hands a supply of 750,000 pistol flints and some of the most skilled artillerymen in the world, including Laffite’s lieutenants, Dominique You and Beluche.

Jackson relented and accepted Laffite’s offer of help. The General made You and Beluche captains and they were given command of batteries on the right side of the American line.

On January 8, 1815, the decisive battle of New Orleans was fought. As dawn was breaking, Jackson visited the troops along the front lines and stopped at a battery where the Baratarians were making coffee in an old iron pot.

“That smells good,” Jackson said. “It’s better coffee than we get. Where did it come from? Did you smuggle it in?”

Dominique You grinned. “That may be,” he said, and he ordered a cup filled for the General. As Jackson sat on his horse sipping the strong, black coffee, he remarked to an aide, “I wish I had fifty such guns on this line, with five hundred devils such as those fellows behind them.”

The British advanced on the American positions to be mowed down by withering fire. At the height of the battle, Jackson again visited Dominique You’s battery to see how things were going.