SEVEN

Lords of Barataria 1813–1814

Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies
With all the 'thirsting eve of Enterprise:
Tell o'er the tales of many a night of toil,
And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil.

PRIVATEERING WAS going to be very profitable indeed. The establishment on Grand Isle was taking shape as the Laffites steadily took over. One French privateer came in regularly just to sell beef and other supplies to the privateers gathered there, while other prizes often included flour and bacon that augmented the corsairs' provisions. The corsair vessels coming in now brought some familiar faces, not the least Lafon, whose La Misere brought in the prize the Cometa in August and unloaded her cargo.¹ Beluche appeared with captures taken by his privateer the Spy, one of the few corsairs officially commissioned in New Orleans by the United States, though by law he should have brought his captures to that port.² It was believed the privateers were operating a court of admiralty on Grand Isle, thus legitimizing their captures at least in their own minds, for the Petit Milan, and probably the Laffites' other vessels, never landed at Cartagena in spite of flying its colors.³ It was faster and more profitable to smuggle their goods into Louisiana instead. On a regular basis, sometimes twice weekly, the Laffites held sales and auctions at places generally known and not far from the island. Rumors began to exaggerate the size and strength of the establishment until some believed that the Laffites had erected a fort on Grand Terre to protect their operation. Eventually foolish word of mouth expanded the number of men at Grand Isle to two thousand, and the number of Laffite vessels to a dozen or more.

Complaints of the operation began to appear in the press with increasing frequency. "The pirates, at and near the Island of Barrataria have received strong reinforcements, and if not soon dislodged, will do serious injury to any little trade that may be opened to this city," one citizen wrote to an editor in March. "Every article is sold cheap for cash—they give no credit, having no banks of discount." He complained that recently the schooner the Arrow, owned by New Orleans merchants, went out under Spanish colors in hopes of getting through the British blockade, but instead fell prey to the privateers, who then took her to Barataria and their admiralty court. Not surprisingly, its judge condemned her as a lawful prize, but afterward he came to New Orleans to buy some books on the maritime laws of nations, and while there promised the hapless owners of the schooner that if they paid the costs of "salvage" they would get their vessel back. In short, having sold the cargo at auction, and having no need for the schooner itself, the Baratarians would now ransom the boat to its owners. Sarcastically, the author commented that "the commercial people of this city must feel happy in having such accommodating neighbors."

The writer did not name the Laffites or anyone else, though by now the Laffites' names were surely associated with the trade. But then he did not give his own name, either, wisely fearing retaliation. He simply signed himself "Prudence," but did offer to give the authorities more information "should it be deemed good policy to break up this nest of robbers." It may have been the first detailed news that New Orleanians had of the operation, whatever rumors they had heard, and it raised a new theme in complaints about the corsair merchants. By refusing to take bank notes or give credit, they were creating a shortage of hard money in the midst of the inflationary problems being caused by the war. Vincent Nolte, one of the leading merchants of the city complained that planters, mostly French Creole, went to Barataria to buy slaves at $150 to $200 each, whereas in the city legal slaves cost up to $700. The money did not leave the country, but it was believed that the agents of the smugglers hoarded it, thus withdrawing it from circulation. This argument ignored the fact that most of the corsairs spent that same specie with New Orleans merchants in buying supplies and outfitting their ships, but some remained convinced that if not stopped, the contrabandists could corner currency and dominate the economy of Louisiana. ⁴ Moreover, the scarcity of hard cash exacerbated partisanship between French and American citizens, as the latter blamed the former's open business dealings with the contrabandists in part for the state of virtual anarchy on the coast.⁵

"Prudence" reported one more rumor, probably no more than an idle boast by a Baratarian in his cups, but worrying to the authorities in time of war. "The new government at Barrataria declare that in the Cession of Louisiana by France to the United States, this Island was not included, and in consequence thereof they have named it The hie of France." Tongue in cheek, "Prudence" suggested that the authorities send a message to the commander of the British squadron in the Gulf asking him to "look into" the rightful authority of the Baratarians, broadly hinting that if they claimed to be an outpost of Napoleon's empire, then they entitled themselves to some attention from British guns.⁶

Certainly Governor Claiborne paid heed. He could not ignore the mounting complaints from the legitimate merchants of New Orleans, nor the damage the corsair merchants were doing to the local economy and to the United States, much in need of cash in time of war. He also could not ignore the diplomatic problems caused with Spain, with whom the United States was not at war. Diego Morphy, the Spanish consul in New Orleans, complained on March n that French and American privateers were taking Spanish vessels, carrying their prizes to Grand Isle, and from there smuggling their cargoes into New Orleans. He confidentially reported to his superiors that there were two hundred to three hundred Frenchmen fortified at Barataria, with fourteen cannon in place to discourage unwelcome callers. Echoing "Prudence," he said he'd heard it said in the streets that the corsairs now called their lair "New France," and were occupying Cat Island as well as Barataria. It was an open secret, he lamented, adding that "the government here is not unaware of this, but I do not know why they have not taken any provisions." He had complained repeatedly to the collector at New Orleans, warning that if the Americans did not stop this business, "the day will come when these pirates will raise the English flag attacking and capturing American ships, and they will do to them the same they do now with the Spanish." ⁷

It was an embarrassment to the Union's newest state to be known as a haven for freebooters. Governor Claiborne attempted to increase the vigilance of state and federal officers alike days after Morphy's private and "Prudence's" public complaints, when on March 15 he issued a proclamation. Having learned that "a considerable Banditti composed of Individuals of different nations, have armed and equipped several Vessels for the avowed purpose of cruising on the high Seas, and committing depredations and piracies of the Vessels of Nations at peace with the United States, and carrying on an illicit trade in goods, Wares and Merchandize with the Inhabitants of this State," he said, he feared that these lawless men would eventually start to prey on citizens of Louisiana. He commanded the pirates to cease, and required civil and military officials within each of the districts to apprehend them. He also cautioned the people not to have anything to do with them or be "in any manner concerned with such high offenders." Rather, he called on citizens to aid officials in putting them down "to rescue Louisiana from the foul reproach which would attach to its character should her shores afford an assylum or her Citizens countenance, to an association of Individuals, whose practices are so subversive to all Laws human and divine, & of whose ill begotten treasure, no Man can partake, without being forever dishonored." ⁸

Claiborne admitted that he did not expect the proclamation to make the smugglers disperse, but he hoped that it would excite the citizenry to boycott their sales, and impel officers of the law to be more vigilant. "As regards the principal offenders I am persuaded that nothing short of the most vigorous measures will put a stop to their evil practices and a resort to force is in my opinion indespensible," Claiborne told General Wilkinson.⁹ That same day the customs collector for the port of New Orleans, echoing Claiborne's plea, formally asked the army and navy for help in putting down the Baratarian smugglers. When the agents of the Laffites and others then in New Orleans learned of it that day, "Prudence" heard them say that Claiborne "has overleaped his powers." After this, interestingly and perhaps ominously, "Prudence" went silent, and was not to be heard from again.¹⁰ Both Claiborne's and the customs collector's efforts failed embarrassingly.¹¹

Part of the hazard posed by the corsairs was their flimsy allegiance to the United States. Certainly the Laffites felt themselves to be Frenchmen first, but loyalties were fluid, and should they choose to aid the British the privateers and the smugglers could seriously compromise the security of New Orleans and south Louisiana. Within weeks of Claiborne's proclamation, the United States marshal for the New Orleans district issued an order requiring anyone not a citizen of the city doing legitimate commerce in town to withdraw at least forty miles from the Gulf coast and tidewater areas. Those who disobeyed faced arrest. ¹² Meanwhile, at least a few citizens began to share the outrage of "Prudence." In June an anonymous tip revealed that Pierre's sometime partner Robin had $10,000 worth of indigo and other goods hidden in flour barrels in the cellar of the house of Jean Baptiste Soubie on Dumaine Street.¹³ Part of this cache was the Laffites' share of the spoils from the Louisa Antonia, still awaiting sale. Soubie was a close associate, having been with the brothers, Jannet, Gambi, Lameson, and others in February when they looted the first prize brought in by Dorada. Now his association with the Laffites caught up with him.¹⁴

If Claiborne expected vigorous measures from Wilkinson, he was to be disappointed. A dissatisfied Washington had ordered General Wilkinson to give up his command in New Orleans in March, but he only handed it over on June 10.¹⁵ A thoroughly unsavory character, Wilkinson was tainted with connection to the failed Burr plot, and was suspected, accurately, to be in the pay of Spain as well as the United States, and serving his own interests ahead of both nations. Major General Thomas Flournoy took over the command of the 7th Military District that same June, but auguries that he would be successful were few. Though Claiborne regarded him as a man of good character, and along with Patterson, Livingston, and other leaders gave him his support, Flournoy enjoyed wretched health and had few manpower resources at hand and less money. Flournoy knew he faced an uphill struggle. "I had enemies in [New] Orleans," he would recall, mostly foreigners, "smugglers, & men engaged in illicit commerce with the enemy, supplying them with provisions &c."

Flournoy realized that stopping them required stronger means than the law allowed. Nevertheless, when Governor Claiborne asked the general to declare martial law in New Orleans soon after he assumed the command, Flournoy thought he could do the job by less drastic means. He posted guards around town at what he thought were suitable places, and ordered that no vessels be allowed out of port without his permission. The smugglers only took this as a challenge, and quickly he learned that his foes were forging his signature on passports. He responded by ordering his officer at the Balize to search every vessel regardless of its documents. Even that did not provide much by way of security, for during the time that a British squadron lay off the Balize observing American movements, a British officer visited the city as a spy more than once, and sometimes ate in the same dining room with Flournoy. Of course the general did not know that until afterward, when he learned that others in that dining room had known the spy as an enemy officer, but said nothing. No wonder he concluded that "I was beset within & without, by spies, Traitors, & bad men."

Among the bad men Flournoy now resolved to stop were the Laffites, wanted by the federal court and, in the case of Pierre at least, the civil court as well. The brothers appear to have stayed landsmen through the spring and summer, though Jean may have gone on cruise very occasionally. In the main he managed affairs at Barataria, and oversaw the transportation of goods up the Lafourche and other routes. Prior to his arrest order in April he dealt openly with merchants friendly to his prices, among them François Duplessis on Conti Street, Laurence Millaudon on St. Louis, and especially Leblanc and Sons, who kept their warehouse on the road to Bayou St. Jean, the route used to smuggle goods into the city from the north. Jean might remain in the city for two or three weeks at a time, and then return to Grand Isle.¹⁶ While in the city, he and Sauvinet, Beluche, Dominique, Gambi, and others "were time and again, seen walking about, publicly, in the streets of New Orleans," complained Nolte. "They had their friends and acquaintances, their depots of goods, &c., in the city, and sold, almost openly, the wares they had obtained by piracy, particularly English manufactured goods."¹⁷ The Laffites got their wares to market by night and then distributed them among the stores in town and on the levee. Men recalled them as being liberal and genial, "and only slightly demoralized by an incurable antipathy ... to revenue laws, restrictive tariffs, and other impediments to free trade." ¹⁸ After Claiborne's proclamation, the attention in the newspapers, and the arrest orders, however, neither Jean nor Pierre was able to venture into New Orleans in safety, at least openly.¹⁹

Nevertheless, Pierre stayed at a safe location very close to the city, probably with a friend on the Bayou St. John road, and almost nightly went into town to visit Marie Villard and the children. It did not require much inquiry for Flournoy to learn of Pierre's nocturnal visits, and even of a certain night that summer when he was expected. Flournoy posted a company of soldiers to arrest Pierre during the night, but Pierre heard their approach in the street and in the little time available he opened a back window and jumped out to the courtyard, then let himself down into an open well with only his head above water. There he stayed until the soldiers moved on, after which he climbed out and got out of town. But he was not to be chased out of New Orleans or his mistress's bed so lightly. He sent a message to Flournoy informing him that he knew the general on sight, and in fact passed him undetected almost nightly when Flournoy walked home from discussions with Claiborne or Shaw. Pierre boasted that at any time he wished he had only to say the word to friends and the general would be abducted in the street or even in his quarters. According to Flournoy, Laffite capped his braggadocio by saying that "as he supposed I acted from a sense of duty, he would spare me if I would give myself no further trouble on his account.—That I had much more to fear from him, than he from me."²⁰

In fact, for the next several months Flournoy did not trouble himself overmuch about the smuggling operation at Barataria, because by August he was convinced by reports that the privateers had abandoned the place. One of his officers, Major Henry Peire, advised him from an outpost at "Cantonment Caminada" on the coast west of Barataria, that he believed the corsairs had moved to Cartagena, abandoning Cat Island, too. Moreover, he predicted that they would not return for fear of harassment. It was a piece of hopeless misinformation, evidence only of how lax Peire was at his job. When he went on to complain that policing the bays and bayous and hundreds of inlets with connections to New Orleans was impossible, he may have revealed his own weariness with trying. Still, acting on Peire's intelligence, Flournoy asked permission to move Peire's little company elsewhere, where they were needed. ²¹ Relocated closer to New Orleans, Peire was soon making seizures of brandy and wine by the barrel.²² From now on watching the Gulf Coast and the smugglers would be up to the Navy and the Revenue service.

For the next several months, in fact, while privateers continued to bring prizes into Cat Island and Grand Isle in spite of what Major Peire said, attention refocused on Bayou Lafourche and the inland routes of transportation. Holmes's raid and Ballinger's exploration and report equipped the revenue people with enough information to try to stop the illicit trade in the middle of its course, since the navy seemed unable to curtail it at its inception on the coast. Thomas Copping, temporary customs inspector for the port of New Orleans in the absence of Thomas Williams, took his work seriously, and on July 10 ventured down the Lafourche, where he seized a pirogue loaded with goods that the occupants said came from Cat Island. The men aboard included several known associates of the Laffites whom Copping brought before the district court.²³

Meanwhile planter John Foley maintained a steady correspondence with customs officials in New Orleans, in part to report on the movements of smugglers past his plantation on the upper Lafourche, and in part to suggest that he be appointed a customs inspector so that he would be authorized to seize the goods. Wine, brandy, and a host of other things floated past his house almost daily, he wrote, and nothing came or went from the Gulf without him seeing it. ²⁴ Armed with such information, Copping and then his successor Pierre Dubourg advised the Treasury Department in July of "the smuggling & Piratical establishment made by certain persons in defiance of the laws at & near Lake Barataria." In return they got a promise that Shaw would be instructed to cooperate with revenue officers in curtailing the trade, and were told that they should go after smuggled merchandise and slaves. The secretary of the treasury told Dubourg to ask Claiborne for help, too, then promised that if he needed more revenue cutters, he need only ask. At last someone in high authority seemed willing to commit resources to the chore, even if it was the tiny and hardly powerful Revenue Service of the Treasury Department.²⁵ Unfortunately, they were only promises.

Every office in Washington seemed to get reports of the smuggling operations on the Lafourche and the Gulf. Even Thomas Freeman, surveyor general of the United States and hardly a man whose official purview included concerns about contraband, heard from his old friend Walker Gilbert, customs inspector at Donaldsonville, of the state of affairs. Four or five hundred privateers occupied Cat Island and others, Gilbert said in a considerable contradiction of Major Peire's report. "They are an out lawd set," Gilbert said in August, and he feared they were going to give him trouble as he surveyed for Freeman along the Lafourche. "It is astonishing to what length this piratical business is carried on," he continued. "It would seem truly to confirm the opinion that we were free; yes free to comit the most heinous crimes with impunity. I saw a person lately from there who informed me that they have regular auctions and from eighty to one hundred persons of New Orleans attend them regularly and so anxious were those speculators to encorage the business that they had paid higher in some instances for dry goods than the New Orleans market."²⁶

The Laffites used several bases for hiding and transporting their wares along the route from Cat Island through the Lafourche, and paid several agents to help them. Cat Island itself was ideal. Summer hurricanes washed completely over the island, meaning it had no inhabitants but for occasional fishermen and a stubborn family of Spaniards living intermittently in a rude cabin of wattle and straw thatching.²⁷ At the other end of the smuggling route in the Donaldsonville area the Laffites hid goods on the Viala plantation and on the land of Godefroi Dumon, employing a man variously called Martin, Morrin, or Mayronne as their local agent. This may have been the François Mayronne who owned the plantation a few miles above New Orleans where the tailrace of a sawmill ran into a bayou, allowing a route for pirogues from there down the bayou to Barataria.²⁸ The agent was also a very large buyer of goods at Grand Isle, and almost certainly the same Mayronne who owned land in the mangrove swamps on the landward side of Grand Isle.²⁹ Typically when one of the Laffites brought a shipment to the vicinity, Mayronne met them some distance ahead of their destination and then took them to the bank of the Lafourche opposite Donaldsonville to hide their contraband.³⁰

"The quantity of goods which passed my House during the High Water is incredible," Foley complained on September 27. "Day and night continually passed Pirogues on Topp covered with Cockel Shells, and I am convinced, as you justly observe that wealthy Planters and others from their situation in life ought not be concerned in business injurious to the community and contrary to the Laws." Local report said that Jean Laffite or some of his men had recently landed three prizes at Cat Island, and were now passing up and down the Lafourche continually as they convoyed the prize goods to hiding or on to buyers. The brothers' Donaldsonville agents were also actively traveling the bayou, though "Mr Dumon who is a great friend of Lafites" was stopped by a small company of soldiers camped lower down on the Lafourche and denied further passage. He simply took another route. Meanwhile another agent, probably Mayronne—"He is notorious as well as Dumon"—successfully passed the guard and brought back a pirogue loaded with goods.

Perhaps this increasingly blatant flouting of the law is what finally escalated the contest between the Laffites and the authorities. Of course, by the fall they were quite definitely wanted men. Both had failed to appear in court in July. Judge Hall set another court date for October, saying this would be their last chance. But neither made an appearance then, either.³¹ Any bond they had posted in April was now forfeit, and they would be prosecuted as smugglers if caught.

The Laffites did not try to hide their guilt. They were committed to their trade, and had accepted that it made them outlaws. On September 28 inspector Walker Gilbert saw three men across the Lafourche from Donaldsonville boldly taking something out of hiding in daylight. For the past several days boats loaded with contraband had been passing, including one very heavy and low in the water that Foley had seen that morning. He assumed its cargo had been deposited somewhere along the bayou, and now Gilbert had seen it. Gilbert went across the Lafourche and demanded the men halt. The men loading a pirogue tossed their goods into the bayou and then jumped into the stream and swam to safety. Gilbert found a quantity of coarse linen, now well soaked and partially ruined but still, he thought, worth bringing to New Orleans for sale once dry.³²

Both Laffites had been in the neighborhood for some days. Pierre was staying at Lake Verret, where he received stores and provisions, especially ship's biscuit, sent up the Mississippi to Dumon, whose wagons then carted it to the Lafourche, and thence through the Attakapas Canal. Pierre was building up supplies to get to Cat Island for another cruise. Jean, whom locals referred to as "the Captain," kept a more public profile in and around Donaldsonville. There he received privateering recruits, men described by residents as having "the appearance of Brigands," whom he funneled to Pierre for assignment to the Laffite vessels. He also spent much time on open and intimate terms both with Dumon and, more disturbingly, county Judge B. Hubbard. Foley learned that it was Hubbard's cart and slaves that had transported the most recent load of provisions to Lake Verret.

Early in October Foley heard stories of a very large store of accumulated merchandise hidden in the woods and long grass at a plantation on the Attakapas Canal. That Gilbert now posed a threat to those goods after his seizure on September 28 irritated Jean. Moreover, rumors—false as yet—claimed that a reward had been offered for the apprehension of one of the Laffites, though which was unknown. This spurred a new resolve with Jean, and he and his friends did not attempt to conceal it. "The Contrabandists & their friends insinuate that as the Merchandise which Mr Gilbert seized is going to New Orleans that it will be taken by them," Foley learned. Jean probably made the open threat in the hope of dissuading the overzealous Gilbert from further interference. If it was more than a stratagem, however, the Laffites were changing the equation. In November 1812 they had run from Holmes and then surrendered without resistance. They would not do so again. Now they themselves would take action, and if Gilbert resisted, the confrontation could lead to violence. The ancient imperatives of their trade were finally catching up with them.

Foley sent word to Gilbert to be careful if he tried to take the captured goods to New Orleans, then continued his surveillance.³³ Gilbert, far from being frightened by Laffites threats, continued uncovering and seizing goods—including nine bales of fabric on the evening of October 7—at the same time notifying New Orleans that more loads were getting past him regularly from his want of men to take them.³⁴ Perhaps what finally drove Jean to action was the loss of another small boat loaded with goods as it moved down the Mississippi from Donaldsonville, taken from some of his men in a nighttime attack. The rest of the smugglers' boats escaped, and the men aboard ran them ashore and landed their goods, which they hid in the woods under brush and wood. That done, Jean Laffite and the men with him crossed to the other side of the river to hide, but returned the next day after a rain made them fear their merchandise had gotten wet. Indeed it had, and Laffite set the men to laying it out on the shore to dry for two or three days, all the while fearful of discovery. On the evening of October 12, the smugglers were walking a few miles downshore to contact the man to whom Laffite was selling the shipment, probably Mayronne, when a horseman rode up from the Lafourche and called for Jean, then gave him a letter most likely sent by Dumon or Hubbard. It informed Laffite that Gilbert was expected to be moving his captured goods down the river to New Orleans that very evening. Now was Jean's opportunity to make good on his threat to retake his merchandise. He reassured his men that few men would be on the boat, and that only Gilbert was to be feared. They lay in wait, but Gilbert did not pass that night. The next morning they walked farther downriver to the house of a Mr. Gaudins on the west bank, perhaps only six miles upstream of New Orleans, where they found Mayronne waiting for them.

Jean and his men stayed at Gaudins's all day and all that night, and on the morning of October 14 saw Gilbert approach. He was in a keelboat, a wide-bottomed cargo craft with a box-like cabin amidships, usually propelled by men walking along the side pushing poles against the river bottom, or else by cordelling, men walking along the levee pulling the boat along with ropes. Laffite could see two black men cordelling the boat, and another three men on top of the cabin, none of them Gilbert. Laffite stepped to the levee and stopped the cordeliers, and the keelboat floated by with Gilbert in the cabin. Jean sent Andrew Whiteman, a man named Scott, and a mulatto after him in a pirogue. As the men left, Jean gave Whiteman peremptory orders to "fire in case of being fired at," and instructions to demand the boat's surrender with the threat that Jean would fire upon it from the shore. Then Laffite and two mulatto associates ran along the levee to catch up with the keelboat, which was drifting close enough to shore that they could probably leap aboard if they caught it.

Whiteman and the pirogue were no sooner on the water than they saw a chicken fall overboard from the keelboat and heard one of the men on its cabin, who clearly did not yet apprehend the situation, yell to them to catch the bird for him. Whiteman had a bigger catch in mind, however. He rowed up to the boat and started to board it, Scott calling in French for Gilbert's men to give up. William Randall, one of the men on the cabin, quickly ducked inside to load his musket, but Gilbert had his gun ready A pistol in each hand, Scott stuck his head in the cabin and Gilbert fired, but his musket was loaded with buckshot, and so he only succeeded in wounding Scott in the head, and not seriously. Scott fired back and hit Randall in the thigh, and then Whiteman fired his musket into the cabin and demanded that Gilbert give up "Mr Lafite's" goods. At the same moment, Laffite and the mulattoes leapt aboard from the shore, and at that, Gilbert surrendered the boat.

Randall was wounded, and at first it looked serious. As was characteristic of the solicitude the Laffites showed toward the Spaniards on the prizes they took, Jean left to find a physician while the rest of his men hauled the keelboat back to Gaudins's, then took Randall to a neighboring house. The next day the firing of a signal gun told Laffite that buyers from New Orleans were on the other side of the river, and he had his men row the merchandise across for sale. Jean, meanwhile, stayed at Gaudins's house, and when some men he had been expecting arrived, he led them up the west bank to return to the Lafourche.³⁵

News of the attack aroused immediate indignation. "This is an outrage I can scarcely believe," Foley declared, "although there is nothing these Pirates are not capable of." ³⁶ It certainly left Gilbert and Randall frustrated. It took Gilbert more than six months to collect the $2 a day due him for his time in bringing the contraband as far as he got it and another $20 reimbursement for the hire of the black deckhands. He paid Randall's doctor out of his own pocket, care that ran to $100 in addition to the $68 he had to pay to board the wounded man for some time at the house where he recuperated. But Randall, who had volunteered to help Gilbert, was not a revenue service employee, and therefore was not eligible for compensation for his time lost due to his injury. No one attached any blame to their loss of the cargo, but still each was a loser in the event.³⁷

Gilbert was angry. He felt he was risking his health and even his life in combating the smugglers. Worse, in the days after his return to Donaldsonville, several more pirogues came up the bayou and he simply could not find anyone to assist him in taking them.³⁸ Two weeks after the affair, the Laffite brothers had made a list of people such as Randall whom they knew to have assisted Gilbert in his seizures. They left the list in the hands of friends in Donaldsonville, who showed it about town and in the immediate area, passing along the Laffites' promise to kill anyone on the list who helped the revenue collector again. Even Gilbert felt the shadow of the threat, for he begged his superior in New Orleans, Pierre Dubourg, to keep what he said about the Laffites in confidence.³⁹

Jean was not the only brother now using force. At almost the same time that Jean confronted Gilbert, Pierre had as many as ninety men with him on Bayou St. Denis in six pirogues heavily loaded with contraband. Suddenly they saw a longboat full of unidentified men approach. Pierre fired a pistol shot in the air and yelled out "pavilion Francais," indicating that they were under French colors and implying a French privateer commission. Then the smugglers unleashed a ragged volley of musket and pistol fire at the boat. A voice came from the boat begging them to stop and saying the strangers meant no harm. The voice identified himself as Captain Amelerq of the United States service, saying he was visiting points along the coast where contraband was believed to be coming ashore. Nevertheless, Laffite and his men continued firing, and Amelerq ordered his men to return a volley. Three of Amelerq's men went down with wounds, and Pierre called out again to ask who his adversaries were. Now Amelerq identified his men as United States soldiers. At once Pierre replied that if he had known he would not have opened fire, and volunteered to take the three wounded men into the city for care. ⁴⁰ But he added that he preferred to lose his life rather than lose his merchandise.

The Laffite operation grew increasingly sophisticated. The brothers even devised a means of introducing contraband goods directly into New Orleans aboard their own ships in broad daylight. It was deceptively simple. They would send La Diligent into port with a safe cargo or perhaps none at all, allowing a thorough search of the vessel without fear. Then the captain made out a manifest to cover the outgoing cargo he was taking on in port. However, whatever he loaded in his hold—and most likely it was innocent provisions for a voyage—on his manifest he listed goods the Laffites had in hand at Cat Island, counting on port authorities not to compare the inventory with the cargo when he left port. After all, the revenue agents were interested in what came into New Orleans, not what went out of it. Then the vessel sailed to the mouth of the Lafourche and took on the contraband, which now matched a cargo manifest signed and approved by the port inspector. The ship took the goods back to New Orleans, where all the paperwork was in order and there was nothing to show that the goods were prize merchandise taken by the privateers. The ploy also worked in reverse. A vessel coming into the Mississippi with a legitimate cargo would stop at the Balize for inspection, but once cleared to go on to New Orleans, the boat went some distance upriver where smugglers loaded contraband they had brought through the bayous, counting on inspectors in port not to check too carefully a manifest that had already passed once. ⁴¹

Authorities caught on before long, however. Just ten days after Jean attacked Gilbert on the Mississippi, Shaw's Gun Vessel No. 5 stopped La Diligent and performed an exhaustive search of the vessel, comparing the findings to the manifest and then seizing her cargo.⁴²

Meanwhile the Laffites and their associates expanded their network of Gulf shore landing places and inland storage and auction sites. They sent goods from the Lafourche landing places into the Bayou Teche country to the hungry planters there.⁴³ They sometimes held sales on the shores of Bayous Villars, Barataria, Rigolets, Perot, and Lake Salvador. The Temple, on the western shore of Lake Salvadore, was their principal trading post, but they also sold and auctioned merchandise at the "Little Temple" where Bayous Rigolets and Perot met.⁴⁴ The Laffites also used Bayou Sauvage, which flowed into the rear of the Bretonne, or Indian Market, on Bayou Road just outside New Orleans, passed on through the Gentilly to Bayou Bienvenue, and continued to the Gulf. It was usable only by small boats. Daniel Clark lived and had his depot on the bank of the bayou near the junction of Esplanade and Bayou Road streets, making his place a convenient conduit into the city.⁴⁵ Thus the smugglers could get their goods to customers from virtually every point of the compass: northward from Barataria to the Temple or on to the city directly; from the east via the lakes and then in the St. John Bayou road or by Clark's place; from the northwest by bringing it down the Mississippi from Donaldsonville; and from the west and southwest by several routes connected to the Lafourche. Whenever one route began attracting too much attention, they could let it lie fallow and concentrate on one or more of the others for a while.

Once they got their goods to the vicinity of New Orleans, sale posed little problem, for seemingly everyone was interested in bargains. When he came to New Orleans after the Gilbert affair, Andrew Whiteman recognized a frequent customer at the Grand Isle sales, only now he was in uniform with the epaulettes of an officer in charge of the city guardhouse.⁴⁶ Nevertheless, smuggled goods were just as vulnerable to seizure in the city as on the bayous. On October 9 officials raided Patton and Murphy's auction house and removed a considerable quantity of contraband.⁴⁷

For the time being, the Lafourche remained the favored artery, though when low water made it too shallow, the Laffites used another route through the Atchafalaya to Bayou Boeuf to Grand Lake and on to Plaquemine.

Late in October, with the repercussions of the attack on Gilbert only starting to be felt, Dumon was helping to plunder a prize schooner off the mouth of the Teche and moving the booty to the Lafourche for hiding.⁴⁸ Suddenly the men Gilbert called "the Cat Island boys" disappeared from Donaldsonville, though Jean Laffite stayed in the village for a few days before going down the Mississippi to an area called the German Coast to protect goods purchased at one of his auctions from a repeat of Gilbert's recent interference.⁴⁹ Dumon seemed almost constantly away from home doing the brothers' business.⁵⁰

Then, just before the end of the month, large pirogues began passing down the bayou loaded with barrels for packing goods and more than twenty-five men, all locals well known in the community, and some of them rather prominent, such as the son-in-law of the Ascension Parish judge. The Laffites had hired them to unload a new prize off the Atchafalaya's mouth, this time a haul of woolens. They were well armed and made no secret of their determination to resist if challenged on their return passage with their contraband, and Foley complained to collector Dubourg that "the Inhabitants generally are friendly towards them & assist and give them every information in their power." ⁵¹ The brothers' share of the latest prize went to New Orleans for sale, while the crew's portion of the goods went on sale at a two-day auction on the banks of the Lafourche at Valentine Solent's plantation. Hundreds of people attended. Merchant I. Hart of New Orleans spent nearly $7,000, and others from the city almost as much, and within days the wares were in the stores of the city.⁵² The impunity with which the transactions were carried on almost challenged a response. "It will be impossible without a force (Military) to put a stop to the contraband in this Neighbourhood," Foley told Dubourg. He knew of a cache of merchandise hidden on Bayou Boeuf not far from Donaldsonville, under the guard of "from 16 to 20 of these ruffians." Nor was that all authorities would have to contend with, for "the inhabitants are likewise interested so it is impossible to go near them."⁵³

Collector Dubourg could add to the problem, for on at least one occasion in October when he asked a local military commander to furnish him with a squad of soldiers for an expedition inland to seize goods, the officer provided the men but Dubourg failed to show up. The officer chided Dubourg that while he was happy to cooperate when he could, he did not have enough men available to be able to divert any of them from their duties for nothing.⁵⁴ Meanwhile Dubourg had sent repeated complaints about the smuggling problem to his superiors, begging to have more revenue cutters to patrol the coast and more men assigned as inspectors inland. Secretary of the Treasury William Jones was not unsympathetic, but he was relatively powerless during the war emergency. He acknowledged being fully aware of "the frequent violation of the revenue laws of the United States, by a daring & unprincipled band of pirates & smugglers." Jones had ordered Dubourg's predecessor Thomas Williams to ask Claiborne for help, but to little avail. "I will not dissemble however that whilst the inhabitants of Louisiana continue to countenance this illegal commerce and the courts of justice forbear to enforce the laws against the offenders, little or no benefit can be expected to result from the best concerted measures," he now told Dubourg. "The appointment even of Inspectors unless they are proof to the temptation of bribes, so far from operating as a check upon smuggling, will only contribute to diminish the chances of detection."

Jones concluded that the best means of achieving success would be to make seizures more profitable to inspectors than the bribes they might get, by giving the inspectors a share of what the collector received on behalf of the government when contraband was seized and sold. This procedure had worked on the Canadian frontier. Of course, Dubourg must also encourage district attorney Grymes to prosecute vigorously all cases with sufficient evidence. Jones could not go to the length of authorizing purchase of another revenue cutter, but he did approve the appointment of up to six new temporary inspectors, and if Dubourg wanted he could buy a cutter on his own and take his chances on the government covering the cost.⁵⁵

It was half a loaf, and not very encouraging at that, but Dubourg took it. He granted temporary appointments as customs inspectors to several men besides Gilbert, though they would work solely for a percentage of the contraband they seized. Foley finally got his appointment on October 17, almost the instant that Dubourg would have learned of the attack on Gilbert.⁵⁶ John Hughes received a similar appointment soon thereafter. The problem was that Dubourg could hardly know whom to trust. The situation became absurd late in October when Judge Hubbard secured a temporary appointment as a customs inspector on the Lafourche. Gilbert angrily complained that it was well known locally that Hubbard had a "friendship to those villens," and asked his superiors to suspend the appointment. ⁵⁷ Foley seconded the complaint, reporting that a recent shipment of ship's biscuit that passed through the area for the privateers was transported to Lake Verret by a cart and a slave belonging to Hubbard, "who I believe to be concerned as he has on all occasions been very intimate with the Lafites."⁵⁸

Gilbert gave the temporary commission to Hubbard, but told him to his face that he knew that Hubbard was close with Dumon and was suspected of dealings with the Laffites. Hubbard pretended outrage and refused to accept the appointment, even complaining to Dubourg. Told of the accusation that he had loaned his cart to Dumon for use in transporting contraband, Hubbard responded indignantly that Dumon was his near neighbor and that Hubbard's overseer had standing orders to loan Dumon anything he needed without asking how it was to be employed. "I have always made it a maxim never to believe more than one half of what the world says," Hubbard protested in denying the rumors. "I disclaim all converse with contrabandists." That said, he went on rather impudently to assert the "me too" defense by commenting that rumor put him in good company, since Claiborne and one of his militia generals were also rumored to be involved with the smugglers.⁵⁹

In early November Donaldsonville became quieter with the "Cat Island boys" still elsewhere. "I have heard nothing of those people who have infested the vicinity of Lafourche for sometime," John Hughes reported on November 5.⁶⁰ But they were hardly inactive. On the evening of November 14 Gilbert learned of a large cache of goods on a bayou not far from Donaldsonville, but under a heavy guard. He confessed that unable as he was to enlist help, he could do nothing about it. He did know of a person on the Lafourche who owed the Laffites 51,000 secured by a note in the hands of a third party, and it occurred to him that he could seize the note and hold it as an indemnification to cover a portion of the goods Jean had taken back from Gilbert in October, but it was a paltry gesture in the face of the scale of the smuggling operation. ⁶¹

Some believed that Jean Laffite was more than a mere smuggler, and might even be an exiled general from Napoleon's defeated armies.⁶² They were wrong, of course, but by the end of the year Jean and Pierre presided over an establishment worthy of a general. Having shifted their base from Barataria, they had now built Cat Island into a seemingly formidable position for their trade. Rumor said they had five or six vessels constantly coming and going, which may have been true, though nothing suggests that the Laffites themselves owned or operated more than their squadron of three—La Diligent, the Dorada, and the Petit Milan. Rumor also said their vessels were each crewed by sixty to ninety men and mounted a dozen cannon or more, which in fact only applied to La Diligent. Cat Island received the prizes of other owners and captains, including Dominique, who also took goods up the Lafourche on his way to New Orleans. Contrary to perceptions, Dominique was not an employee of the Laffites, but an independent corsair who sold prize goods to them from time to time.⁶³ Gilbert, understandably prejudiced where the Laffites entered the picture, referred to them and their followers as "this banditti, the most base and daring ever known in any country on Earth." All told, the exaggerated reports that came up the Lafourche to him indicated that there were five hundred to six hundred men on the island with a shore battery of fourteen guns to protect their base, and that the brothers had sunk a prize brig in the main pass into the island to deter deep draft naval warships from getting too close.

"The quantity of goods brought in by this banditti is immense: I have not a doubt but they have entered & secured far more than a million of dollars within this last six months," he told his superiors. Up to five hundred citizens at a time could be found on Cat Island buying from them. "What depravity!—Men in office; Citizens hitherto of undoubted integrity and first respectability, uniting with a piratical band and sharing with them their ill gotten booty." When legal officers did not try to apprehend the smugglers or stop the trade, law-abiding citizens got the wrong message. ⁶⁴ Even fines of up to three times the value of contraband purchased could not deter the bargain hunters from buying Laffite goods.⁶⁵ Meanwhile those citizens who objected to smuggling complained that the smugglers had become "the strongest force in Louisiana," as one declared. "Such a nest of pyrates had never been known on the continent."⁶⁶

Finally other forces came into play. The day after Gilbert learned of the guarded store of contraband, Patterson received orders to relieve the hapless Shaw of command of United States naval forces headquartered at New Orleans.⁶⁷ Patterson had already sparred with the Laffites once. Moreover, he had the motivation of knowing a proportion of whatever vessels and goods he seized from them would be awarded to him in prize courts. There is no question that the contrabandists had been on his mind before he took his new command, and he made them a priority now. Within days of relieving Shaw, Patterson reported to the secretary of the navy that the smugglers "have now arrived to such a pitch of insolence and confidence from their numbers as to set the revenue laws and force at defence, and should they not be soon destroyed, it will be extremely hazardous for an unarmed vessel even American to approach this coast." He reported Jean Laffites attack on Gilbert, and the damage the corsairs were doing to the local economy. "The honest merchant cannot obtain a livelihood, by his sales while those robbers robe in riches piratically captured on the high seas and brought and sold in face of day in this place," he declared.⁶⁸ Patterson took over on December 13, 1813, and on inspecting his new post he felt hopeful that he could put down the smugglers. He made it clear to Jones, however, that this could not be done with the men and vessels currently available at New Orleans. The secretary, belatedly responding to Shaw's pleas for faster ships to chase down the privateers, suggested sending in a force of speedy vessels, and Patterson felt encouraged. ⁶⁹

The governor shared Patterson's indignation and embarrassment. He encountered the sympathetic attitude of the French and Creole people of New Orleans personally when he denounced smugglers as criminals to ladies on social occasions, and they only replied, as he put it, that "that is impossible; for my grandfather, or my father, or my husband, was, under the Spanish government, a great smuggler, and he was always esteemed an honest man."⁷⁰ Patterson's appointment may have given the governor a renewed incentive to do something. On November 24 Claiborne issued another proclamation. Smuggling had lately increased, he said, and the brazen smugglers no longer tried to conceal their activities, selling their wares in open daylight. He referred to the attack on Gilbert, and for the first time specifically named the chief culprit as Jean Laffite. He now charged state, civil, and military officials to prevent these violations and apprehend those engaged in the smuggling, and issued an order for Laffites arrest. Claiborne warned that the apathy of the people could only further disgrace Louisiana, and instructed the people to give no aid to Laffite or his men, but to help arrest them. He offered a $500 reward to anyone delivering Laffite to the sheriff in New Orleans, or any other sheriff in the state.⁷¹

Now at last Jean Laffite had a price on his head, even if $500 was not much of a reward given his transgressions, or much of an inducement to his associates to turn him in. Indeed, Jean was in the city when Claiborne issued his proclamation, and any number of associates could have claimed the quick reward—at later risk of their lives, of course. Laffites own response revealed yet again the combination of bravado and impish humor in his personality. That day he hired a printer to produce some handbills of his own that his associates put up in the night. When New Orleans awoke the next morning, citizens saw posted at the Exchange Coffee House and elsewhere a $1,000 reward offered for apprehending Governor Claiborne and delivering him to Cat Island. ⁷² It was signed simply "Laffite." A memorandum at the bottom of the broadside stated that he was "only jesting & desired that no one would do violence to his Excellency."⁷³

While most citizens saw the humor in it, Gilbert at least took it very seriously. "Le Fitte & Party," as he called them, were dangerous men. He believed that Claiborne was not personally safe. "I firmly believe that the Gov. runs a greater risk of being taken to Cat Island and tried for his life than Le Fitte does of being punished for his crimes in the State of Louisiana," Gilbert moaned. The signs of impending anarchy could hardly be worse than the fact that Governor Claiborne could not count on his own authorities for his protection.⁷⁴