NINETEEN

The Dying Dream 1819

He knew himself a villain—but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

BY MID-FEBRUARY of 1819 affairs at Galveston were quiet enough that Jean found time to return to New Orleans for a short visit, probably to purchase supplies and building materials with some of the money brought in from the slave sales. He felt flush enough to loan $4,800 to an associate in the city, and then worked with Marie Villard to repurchase the Bourbon and St. Philip house.¹ He negotiated a price of $9,000 with Antoine Abat, a considerable step-up from what Marie and Pierre had paid for it a few years before. No cash changed hands, however. Instead, Jean gave Abat nine promissory notes due in six months, mid-August, himself being security for one of them.² After mid-March he returned to Galveston to continue the rebuilding. Before leaving, he made arrangements for Lameson's the Panchita, now renamed the Two Friends, to bring back Humbert and Dominique and about thirty other men with whom the Laffites intended to get the Galveston operation going once more. It was a move that initially made Fatio fear that forces were marshaling to make another try at Tampico,³ an idea Jean may have planted if only to manufacture a crisis in which his inside information could he valuable. In fact, the "associates" had long since given up filibustering.

Still, as he departed, Jean may have heard the first rumblings of the unrest from a different quarter that would inspire one final filibustering adventure. By 1819 Spain seemed firmly in control of Texas and Mexico with a treaty establishing the western boundary of Louisiana at the Sabine finally signed and on every front, it seemed, a frenzied decade of agitation laid to rest.

Not for Dr. James Long of Natchez, however, or for the frontier people in the Mississippi Valley who believed that Texas had been theirs and that they had been robbed when Adams gave it away. Worse, Washington had given it away to Spaniards, whose brutality and treachery were by now accepted frontier dogma. As soon as the Adams-Onis Treaty became known in Natchez, Long and others gathered to protest. Among them were familiar names from the filibustering years, such as the Kemper brothers and Gutiérrez, along with new names like James Gaines, Warren D. C. Hall, and the Bowie brothers, James and Rezin.

In May a group of these men gathered in Natchez to plan an invasion army to take back what Adams had given away. Perhaps because his uncle-in-law had been a general, Long was given command of the venture. Once more the merchants and investors hoping to profit pledged their financial support. Once more adventurous and avaricious young men turned out to become soldiers of "liberation." Long established his rendezvous at the old filibuster base of Natchitoches, and the first contingent of them arrived early in June. By June 21 Long had about two hundred men across the line into Texas at Nacogdoches. That day he and his officers decreed a new government, with Long as President of the Supreme Council of Twenty-one. Two days later, in a declaration of independence in which he hoped to speak to the world, Long announced that Texas was now and henceforward an independent republic.

The enterprise was never much more than a landgrab at its root, however, and the public at large saw through the group. In Natchitoches, shortly after Long left for Texas, John Jamison likened Long's followers to puppies riding on a chariot, looking back and telling themselves "what a dust we make." He advised Secretary of War John C. Calhoun in Washington that "the whole is a ridiculos [wc] farce and will end like all bubbles."⁴

The day after issuing the declaration of independence, Long sent two men, one of them James Gaines, south along the trace to Galveston to meet with Jean Laffite. When Laffite read the letter they gave him he saw that President Long was offering him an office in the new government and a commission to privateer in its name out of Galveston. In return, he asked for Laffite's fealty and assistance.⁵ To Laffite this was an opportunity. Spain would easily defeat Long, but the Long threat offered the Laffites a chance to infiltrate a plot and pass along information to Fatio and Apodaca. Now as before, assisting the failure of others could bring profit to the Laffites.

Pierre had not returned from the East when Jean received Long's embassy, but the younger brother knew what to do. It was an old story by now. He sent a copy of Long's June 24 letter to Fatio, and meanwhile addressed a reply, sending a copy of that, too, to Havana.⁶ As so often before, Laffite pledged his long devotion to "the emancipation of the Mexican provinces," and assured the filibuster that the Laffites wished to advance his efforts in any way possible. However, he could not help but remind Long that the Laffites had seen Gutiérrez and Magee, Mina and Perry, and Lallemand all try and fail before him. "I have done all in my power to help them along and should not regret the sacrifices they have cost me had they happily succeeded," he said. Now might be a good time for another effort, for Spain was tired and weak in the New World. Indeed, Jean represented his Galveston enclave as a torch keeping alive the flame of freedom in the region. "The spirit of liberty budding out under my care in these fertile provinces is growing rapidly," he said, "and it is no longer necessary to stimulate the heads of those young and brave Creoles but only to lead them wisely."

But he wanted to know the particulars of Long's intentions and immediate plans, and if he was to ally himself with the filibuster, he needed a formal agreement between them of the Laffites' roles and the benefits to accrue to them. He asked Long to tell him "exactly what your resources are, and give me a letter explaining the means you must have to commence the campaign so that I can second you," information that would go straight to Fatio. Jean went on, "Do not keep anything from me that would enable me to cooperate with you." With customary self-aggrandizement, Laffite dangled a morsel before Long and hinted that he knew accurate information on Mexican strength in the region, referring to agents he claimed to have in Bexar who kept him apprised of sentiment there, and of the support for resistance awaiting release.

Jean also bargained for the time he would need to notify Fatio in New Orleans and perhaps strike a new deal with Spain. Jean also expected Pierre at Galveston in a few days and wanted, as always, to confer with his older brother. Meanwhile he offered some advice to Long. Galveston privateers still flew the flag of the Mexican insurgency, but Long entertained no idea of seizing Texas for an illusory independent Mexico and had raised his own banner at Natchitoches. Jean thought it blunted their efforts to be under different flags and for the Laffites to switch now would look like indecision. "It would be a bad policy to take one different from the one under which we have been fighting for the last eight years," he argued. Besides, their flag was recognized by Buenos Aires and Venezuela "and our privateers under such colors are received there in a friendly manner by the authorities of those provinces."

He also told Long that they should establish an admiralty court at Galveston, though neither had the authorization to do so. No doubt that is something he hoped Pierre would bring back with him from one of the several meetings with revolutionary representatives in Philadelphia or Baltimore that had kept him on the East Coast. Meanwhile Jean's suggestion that Long fly the flag of the Mexican insurgency may have been an attempt at insurance. If Pierre came back empty-handed, then even a show of embracing the revolutionary cause would allow Long to justify letters of marque and an admiralty court under his rump council.

Long asked to meet personally with Laffite, but Jean protested that he could not leave Galveston before Pierre returned. Long had also asked for some ammunition, and Jean could spare a little of that, but only a little, as he was fortifying Galveston once more in the wake of the hurricane. Once he had more, he promised to give Long all he asked.⁷ It was a typical Laffite response, seeming to promise much in return for a lot of information, but giving little or nothing in effect. Typical of the filibusters, however, Long had not brought adequate supplies, and in July had to disperse his men in small parties to subsist from the land until he could somehow bring in substantial provisions from Louisiana.

Pierre had arrived back in New Orleans by mid-July if not earlier, and the necessity of conferring with him persuaded Jean to leave the island shortly after responding to Long.⁸ The brothers returned to Galveston during the first weeks of August,⁹ and were there when new emissaries from Long stepped ashore. They came to seek supplies, which they may have gotten in some measure, but also to move on to the steps Jean had suggested of establishing an admiralty court and issuing letters of marque under the authority of what Long would call the Republic of Texas. The Laffites put them off, at least on the admiralty court, for that would have required them to swear fealty to Long, and thus abrogate their ability to operate under the rotting cloak of the Mexican insurgency. Humbert had been back since April, when the Two Friends dropped anchor in the bay, and now the old warrior began issuing commissions in his role as "lieutenant general and chief of the Province of Texas" under authority from the Mexican Congress. He granted the first on August 18 to Juan Salvador de Torres for Le Brave, captained by Jean Desfarges.¹⁰

Typically, the official governmental letter of marque was a document that had been signed in advance in blank by a member of the junta and as such, had no validity.¹¹ Laffite's commissions to his vessels, of which he probably never issued more than a half dozen, were written in duplicate in longhand by a secretary, one copy for the vessel and the other for retention, and signed by Laffite. He authorized his captains to stop neutral vessels and take supplies as needed, paying with a warrant negotiable with Laurent Maire, who was now a merchant in New Orleans. When bringing a prize into Galveston, the corsair should fly no flag but a white one on the mizzenmast, and approach from west of the pass. Laffite would respond by showing a white flag from the signal tower atop his house, or else fly a flag on the beach. All friendly ships lying at anchor would display white flags while in port, and when a corsair entered the bay it should fire one shot and receive an answering shot from shore. His captains were prohibited from making landing with their prizes anywhere except Galveston.¹²

The overriding concern with profit was evident in another document handed to captains by Laffite and Humbert, a "charter for partition" that detailed the division of spoils taken from prizes, a touchy subject since the dawn of piracy. Half of everything went to the ship owner and outfitter, together with a 5 percent commission on the balance of the cargo brought into Galveston. The captain was to hold back another 5 percent of what was due to the crew pending dispensation of everything. If the crew took a vessel better than their own and abandoned their own as a result, then the new prize became entirely the property of the owner of the original privateer in order to cover his loss. All arms also went to the owner. Thereafter, in something resembling an insurance policy, Laffite detailed the special shares of profit to be given to a man should he lose an arm or a leg. The first man to spot a prize was to get an extra share, as was the first man to board one. The captain controlled four discretionary shares to hand out to men who performed particularly well, whereas any men who deserted or were caught stealing from their mates should lose their shares. Then in descending order from the captain to the common crewmen, a division by shares by rank was detailed. ¹³

Whether Humbert was doing this on the basis of his old commission, or if Pierre secured some new authorization for him in the East, is unclear, but it would not have mattered to the Laffites either way. Before long the word was out that Humbert, "an outcast and a wanderer on the face of the earth," as Patterson called him a few weeks hence, had washed ashore at Galveston yet again to issue commissions for the Laffites.¹⁴ So long as he was doing that, it did not suit the brothers' purposes to make Galveston submit itself to Long's presumed authority.

By late September, however, the Laffites had rethought their situation. The brothers could not expect to be able to hold their island base too much longer. With their corsairs back on the Gulf making money, the brothers could consider ostensibly changing allegiances to Long, putting them in a position to be more valuable to Spain, with the hope for remuneration, or else toleration of their Galveston establishment.

By this time, however, Apodaca had decided he wanted nothing further to do with the double-dealing Laffites. Pierre's plan proposed to Onís in Washington appeared pointless to the viceroy. Given the time it took for information to get from Galveston to Havana, it would be old and obsolete before it could be acted upon, and thus not worth the expense. Besides, Apodaca did not trust the Laffites, and felt convinced that they had been double-dealing with Fatio and Onís. "In spite of whatever the Minister Onís says in favor of LaFit, I do not have any confidence in him," Apodaca told Madrid. He could not forget that while supposedly helping to disrupt Lallemand's enterprise with Fatio, Jean Laffite was also feeding Lallemand's people and thus apparently prolonging their stay. The Champ d'Asile settlement would never have gotten started had Jean not saved the colonists when they first landed at Galveston, and the Laffite argument that they were lulling the colonists to make them easy prey did not carry weight in Havana. "The Lafite person is only concerned with his own affairs," Apodaca railed, "and double-dealing with us and the adventurers."

As for Pierre's offer to sell munitions and supplies to Havana, it was pointless, for Apodaca now had means to secure all he needed from other more reliable sources. Worse, any such dealing with Pierre would be ill advised because it would enable him to provide information on Spanish strength to other filibusters or rebels. Moreover, it would entrench Galveston as a smuggling haven. "Lafit is a lost man, reduced to poverty and without the means of subsistence," said Apodaca. The Laffites would say or do anything for money, and honor no loyalty. As for Galveston, it should be destroyed and the Laffite operation dispersed. Apodaca wanted the Laffites erased from the Spanish coast throughout his viceregal domain.¹⁵ Weather and circumstances had stopped the fleet from attacking in 1818, but in February of this year Apodaca had requested ships for another assault and waited only for official approval. At the same time he sent fifteen thousand pesos to the military commander in Texas to pay for an overland expedition to Galveston, though summer floods and other problems would sap the funds before they could be used.¹⁶

Unaware of the Spanish sword poised over him, or that his sometime ally Onís had been ordered back to Spain in May, on September 30 Jean sent another letter to Long, this time borne by John Davis and Jean Lacaze. Laffite was simply gulling the filibuster. ¹⁷ Protesting once again that he could not leave Galveston, Jean said these two "lawyers" from New Orleans came to represent the Laffites' willingness to enter into an agreement whereby they would aid Long in establishing and maintaining Mexican authority at Galveston. To that end, Laffite sent a draft of such an agreement.¹⁸ Long took the Laffite proposal before his council, and by October 7 Long had come to Galveston to meet with Jean. On that day he appointed Jean "governor and commander-in-chief of the Island of St. Luis and Port of Galveston," empowered to grant letters of marque against Spanish shipping.¹⁹ He also declared Galveston a port of entry for the Republic. Jean Laffite began commissioning privateers under his power as governor, including that month the Jupiter, which sailed under the new "Mexican" colors of a white star in the center of a red field.²⁰ Once again the Laffites were serving two masters, and preparing to betray one.

That day, in New Orleans, Pierre wrote a report on affairs at Galveston to Cienfuegos's successor in Havana, Captain General Juan Cagigal. It recounted the recent misfortunes suffered by the Laffites, and presented an exaggerated portrait of Long's arrival and his undoubted links to American expansionists, as well as his intention of taking La Bahia when his command was strong enough. Of course Pierre would not know until sometime later of the events on Galveston Island that day or what happened immediately thereafter.²¹

Long decided to take a party of his followers from Natchitoches to Galveston to help establish his sovereignty on the island, but he got only as far as the Coushatta Trace when he learned that Spanish soldados were on their way to attack. Long ordered a retreat to Nacogdoches, but when he recrossed the Brazos River the Spaniards caught him with a surprise attack that sent him reeling back in confusion. Meanwhile a post on the Trinity commanded by Long's brother David was also attacked, and the brother was killed. Fleeing refugees spread panic in Nacogdoches, and when Long reached his base he found it evacuated. He abandoned the town on October 26, just two days before Spaniards occupied the village, ²² and retreated to Louisiana. It had been in part Jean's July warning to Fatio, and information sent subsequently, that resulted in the successful expulsion of the filibusters—this being the only occasion when intelligence furnished by the Laffites influenced Spain's campaign against invaders and revolutionaries. Their information on Long also helped persuade Spain to delay ratification of the Adams-Onis Treaty, by making the Spaniards feel that the United States was trying through Long to take by force what it had agreed to give up in diplomacy.²³

Long was in disgrace at the fiasco. As his fragmented army crossed the Sabine, one of his officers grumbled that the general had deceived his followers as to their prospects, and might be in danger from his own people if he appeared on the Sabine. A rumor soon spread along the river that Long fled south to Galveston to seek refuge with Laffite.²⁴ In Bexar Spanish authorities believed the same, and ordered a regimental detachment to reconnoiter the strength of "Genl. Long and the Pirate Lafit."²⁵

At this moment, the word "pirate" was finally to carry real peril for the Laffites. When Congress passed new legislation to protect commerce and punish piracy as part of the bargain in the Adams-Onis Treaty, even Onís for a change took heart. The act did not precisely define who should be regarded as pirates, however. Onís wanted it to include those who fitted out privateers in the United States to prey on Spanish shipping under Latin American insurgent flags, and who did so without being commissioned in a home port of that flag, or who took their prizes to insurgent ports for adjudication. In short, Onís wanted Galveston ruled illegal as well as Old Providence and all other corsair outposts on "some desert Island, where under colour of giving a sanction to their robberies, they have established a tribunal bearing the semblance of an Admiralty court." He also wanted it stipulated that the captain and two-thirds of the crew of a privateer must be native to the nation whose flag they flew. ²⁶

Further definition would be forthcoming, as would a renewed assault on the illicit corsairs and their nests. In May Washington sent Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry aboard the John Adams to cruise between Venezuela and Buenos Aires and San Domingue to protect American commerce in those waters. Privately Adams also wanted Perry to meet with the leaders of the insurgencies and assure them of unofficial American support.²⁷ The message was clear enough. The United States would honor privateers properly commissioned, but would regard all others as pirates. Adams was especially concerned with those commissioned by DeForest for Buenos Aires.²⁸

Meanwhile on the Gulf coast, Patterson began the year with his squadron in poor condition. His ketch the Surprise was in such bad shape that he thought it might be cheaper to replace her than to repair her. "In her present condition she is unsafe as a cruising vessel," he reported the previous November.²⁹ The Enterprise needed extensive repairs and her sails and rigging were much worn. He also had the Prometheus, too decayed to be worth repairing. The Firebrand, mounting four twelve-pounder medium guns and four twelve-pounder carronades, was in perfect condition in all respects, however, and his only seaworthy vessel with substantial armament. Otherwise he had the revenue cutter the Louisiana, in bad shape generally and unarmed; the little felucca the Bull Dog with its two twelve-pounder carronades, in excellent shape; and two small launches each mounting a single carronade.³⁰

Still Patterson tightened his grip on the Gulf coast, on July 18 capturing nine men who had attacked and plundered several vessels at anchor below New Orleans and then retreated to Big Bayou Barataria. Washington gave him more muscle, and by late September when rumor had the brutal pirate William Mitchell fortified at Barataria with 150 men, Patterson stationed the Hornet, the Lynx, the Surprise, and the Bull Dog off Barataria and the passes leading in from the sea, and sent an expedition in to destroy the remnant of a renascent pirate base.³¹ The Laffites' old associate Dominique had already given up on Gulf coast privateering, shortly after appearing in court in New Orleans to contest his right to three boxes of prize goods. When he put out from Galveston the previous March, he left again bound for Aury and Old Providence, stepping out of the Laffite orbit for good.³²

Less than a month earlier, however, Patterson struck a blow that sent a shiver throughout the corsairing community, and signaled the beginning of its end. On August 29 the Laffite-owned privateer Le Brave under Desfarges took the Filomena bound from Pensacola to Havana, laden with a cargo of raisins, flour, lard, beef, peas, and $3,000 in gold and silver coin. The next day about one hundred miles west of the Florida Keys the vessels encountered the cutters the Alabama, commanded by Don Gomez Taylor, and the Louisiana, with Lieutenant Harris Loomis in command. Desfarges had his men fire a musket volley at the Louisiana, but after a return volley he quickly surrendered. Loomis brought both the privateer and her prize back to Bayou St. John above New Orleans.³³ Taken aboard Le Brave were seventeen men including Captain Desfarges, and with them Loomis captured the articles of agreement prepared at Jean Laffite's order, a blank commission signed by Humbert, and other documents going back to the days of Aury, John Ducoing, and John Peter Rousselin. In a trunk in the cabin Loomis also found some table silver and assorted items including a flag of the Mexican republic.³⁴

Perhaps for the first time, federal authorities had in their hands the letters of marque and other relevant documents of a Laffite privateer out of Galveston, and it was immediately apparent how bogus was any claim to legitimacy. The federal court had a perfect opportunity with an ironclad case to send a message to the corsair community. On November 12 a grand jury indicted Desfarges and his crew on charges of piracy. ³⁵

It was not a good time to be called a pirate. On August 27, 1819, three days before the taking of Le Brave, Judge Richard Peters handed down a decision in a case involving one of DeForest's privateers that brought a Spanish prize into Philadelphia after being fitted out illegally in Baltimore. What he said bore directly on the Laffite operation as well as American corsairs everywhere:

It is a disgrace to the character of American citizens, thus to prostitute themselves in nefarious acts of robbery and plunder, under the mask of assisting the Spanish patriots of South America, as those are termed whose cause many of our deluded or vitiated citizens effect to espouse; when in fact they are pursuing selfish and sordid objects, for their private emolument. Such base and hypocritical depravity, gives to those who envy our national character and unexampled success in our republican and highly estimable form of government, the opportunity of uncandidly generalizing the foul propensities of culpable individuals, into stains on our national reputation; although those who are guilty of such unworthy and base crimes and misdemeanors, are, as in all civilized nations they should be, subjected to punishment by our laws, (which if defective in a case will no doubt be made more perfect), and are held in merited detestation by the great body of our citizens. It is the duty of those to whom the execution of our laws is committed, to correct these abuses, by punishing the perpetrators, and rendering their enormities unprofitable to them, by restoring their plunder to those who have suffered by their depredations. Such unwarrantable misbehavior becomes unsatiable and boundless, and spreads itself into acts of piracy, murder, and robbery committed on the persons and property even of our own citizens, as well as those of all countries who navigate the seas, emphatically styled the high road or nations. The Buenos Ayres flag, or even the flag or commission of a nation acknowledged by our government to be sovereign and independent, would not justify to our laws, any acts of capture or depredation committed on the high seas, by an armed vessel fitted and furnished in any of our ports either wholly or partially, on the property or persons of the subjects of a power in amity with us. Such fitting and furnishing, would be a breach of our laws, even if the whole of the officers and crew were subjects of a foreign nation, originally belonging to, and arriving in the vessel thus furnished, equipped or fitted. But it is highly criminal in our citizens to engage on board such vessel, or otherwise to commit hostilities against a friendly power under any pretext. ³⁶

The Peters decision set a precedent for dealing with questionable privateers and meant trouble for the Laffites, especially once initial reports saying that Le Brave belonged to one "Le Fage" were corrected to identify the owner as Jean Laffite. More sobering to the accused was the fact that finally, on the previous March 3, Congress had made piracy a capital crime.

Of course, many men, including the Laffites, had gotten to this point in the past. But hereafter it was not to be so easy. Grymes was engaged, apparently by Pierre Laffite, to defend Desfarges and the others. The crux of the case would be the legitimacy of the Laffite commissions.³⁷ Until this time, life in New Orleans had assumed a more orderly pace for Pierre than his brother's life at Galveston. When he returned from the East he found the good news that he had won his suit against the estate of Champlin, though instead of getting all Pierre had sought, Livingston secured only $2,879.50 for his client.³⁸ One of Marie's relations had bought a house two doors away on St. Philip.³⁹ The family in the house on the corner may have grown yet again, for on Pierre's return he bought a slave girl aged just twelve, and in late August a grown male from the wife of Laurent Maire. ⁴⁰ The old problems between Pierre and Paul Lanusse seemed to have been forgotten, and Pierre now conducted much of his business on behalf of Galveston through Lanusse's mercantile house.⁴¹ Indeed, when Jean helped Marie Villard repurchase the Bourbon and St. Philip house from Abat, one of the men subscribing himself as security for her notes was Lanusse.⁴²

Nevertheless money was tight. On September 6, two weeks after the $9,000 in notes for the repurchase of their house came due, Marie had been able to pay off barely more than $2,000.⁴³ Meanwhile Pierre's health probably remained indifferent, and the growing fear of exposure and uncertainty over the brothers' future employment by Spain contributed to a time of upset and uncertainty.⁴⁴

Now the plight of Desfarges and his crew added to the stress. The defendants had entered pleas of not guilty and Pierre and the rest had set about their defense.⁴⁵ They wanted to call Humbert to testify to his supposed authority in issuing Le Braves commission, but Humbert had decided it would be prudent to distance himself from the Laffites and he refused to testify. Ironically, the prosecution called Pierre Laffite and Pierre Lameson as witnesses for the government. On November 19 Laffite was able to testify as to the authority from Herrera, or Iturribarria, or whomever, that might or might not legitimize Humbert's commissions. Lameson could speak to his own earlier commission and corroborate Laffite. But together their testimony could have been damning for the men they wanted to defend, for they could present nothing to convince a jury that Desfarges sailed under legitimate papers. Hardly surprisingly, an attempt to get the men out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus was denied, for everyone knew that Desfarges and the rest would disappear as the Laffites had in 1813. On November 22 the jury returned a guilty verdict within minutes.⁴⁶

Judge Hall postponed sentencing for several weeks. Until the Long business was settled, Jean did not dare leave Galveston. Pierre Laffite could often be seen at Maspero's Exchange Commercial Coffee House, alternately protesting that he and his brother were not and had never been pirates, and continuing his cover of railing against the Spaniards—which he could do with some sincerity after the expense he had incurred without reimbursement.⁴⁷ Whatever his efforts to free Desfarges, however, he failed. It did not help that the sentiment against piracy continued to escalate as public sympathy for smugglers seemed to dissipate. On December 30, before a courtroom packed with Laffite friends, Judge Hall pronounced the feared sentence of death by hanging. It was time to set stern examples.

This made it all the more important for the Laffites to reestablish themselves with Spain, and James Long could provide the lure. When Long arrived at Bolivar Point in late November or early December after the Brazos River fiasco, he did not immediately meet with Jean. Instead, he sent James Gaines, Warren Hall, and a few followers, and they spent some time on Galveston. Laffite received them in the repaired frame house, and there Gaines passed on Long's request that Laffite join forces with him against Spain. Despite showing every hospitality, Laffite avoided making any commitment.⁴⁸ Meanwhile Jean sent word to Pierre in New Orleans, and Pierre in turn informed Fatio and wrote to Cagigal with a report of affairs at Galveston. He twisted the bare facts into a warning that Long surely intended to seize the port from Spain's friends, the Laffites. The intruders must be driven away. "I foresee the most woeful consequences if they take possession," he said, "since it is evident that they are instruments of a Government that seeks means of territorial expansion and that is setting them at work as pioneers." In short, Pierre accused Long of being a United States agent. Naturally the Laffites had a plan whereby Spain, with their help, could get rid of Long if he did take over. Pierre asked for eighty to one hundred men to be sent to Galveston, where Jean would allow them through the pass into the bay by means of "a signal to be agreed upon." He would then enable their commander to seize the place and raise the Spanish flag without difficulty. If the Americans tried to return and take the port by force, the Laffites would not be strong enough to repel them, perhaps, but Pierre promised that thanks to the brothers' knowledge of the coast, "never, never will the American gentlemen be masters of it." ⁴⁹ Long's presence also irritated some in the United States, who complained that Galveston, which some described as "the present headquarters of the republicans," was nothing more than "a nest of murderers and pirates."⁵⁰

While both Spain and the United States decided what, if anything, to do about Long, Jean Laffite had to deal with his unwelcome new neighbor on Bolivar Point, and he did so with his usual veneer of charm. Warren Hall from Rapides Parish, Louisiana, found the corsair, as had so many before him, to be tall and well formed other than those tiny hands and feet, and a man of appealing manners. If Jean Laffite showed any difference in his dealings with people, it was that he treated his subordinates with a coolness approaching the aloof, while visitors got a warm welcome. He spoke good English, with an accent that left no doubt as to his Bordeaux nativity, and which Hall found gave additional zest to his impressive conversational skill. Laffite entertained his guests with often amusing stories of his past, many of them no doubt invented for their benefit. As he spoke, he habitually kept one eye closed, leading some to believe that he was blind in that eye. The old green uniform was gone, at least for the present, replaced by the simple broadcloth of the fashionable gentleman, a costume that should have seemed out of place on this all-but-desert island among pirates and smugglers.⁵¹

Hall found Laffite "always affable, but perfectly impenetrable."⁵² Gaines thought much the same, finding Laffite gentlemanly, sober, and thoughtful, but distant from his subordinates, rarely smiling. He had the manner and bearing of a leader, and relied on his personality and prestige to maintain control, though he occasionally wore a brace of pistols in his belt when he thought they lent weight to his authority. He did not brook disobedience, and could punish malefactors severely, but apparently with the sort of rude equitability that even the roughest men respected. ⁵³ When one of the men on the island, François Francis, robbed Robert Kuykendall, a traveler from the Cadron settlement in Arkansas, Laffite turned Francis over to Kuykendall and told him to punish Francis as he pleased. Kuykendall hanged him.⁵⁴ About the same time occurred a long-remembered incident with a privateer who tried to withhold some of the prize goods from the shares turned over to Laffite. When confronted, he supposedly spat in Laffite's face or offered some other insult, and the governor grabbed him, spun him around, and kicked him in the seat of his pants, which put an end to the insolence.⁵⁵ Twenty years later men who had been on Galveston at this time liked to recall of Jean Laffite that "his sailors adored him, for though a strict disciplinarian & one who made no bones of hanging & shooting his subjects when they deserved, yet was he generous withal." There may have been more than a gloss of nostalgia or "sea story" to this, but it is apparent that Laffite knew how to control his men with a judicious mixture of severity and generosity.⁵⁶

Always there to soften the rude edges of Jean's life on the island was Laffite's mulatto mistress. Perhaps she was Catherine, as there were rumors on the island that she had a son by Laffite. More likely his companion was another woman altogether. Catherine probably never visited Galveston, even during the awful summer of 1819 when a yellow fever epidemic swept New Orleans. Pierre had at least two children born in earlier years, Pierre and Jean, who disappear from the record after 1818, in all probability victims of the fever. If Jean felt conscious of the hazard being faced by Catherine and their son Jean Pierre, it was apparently not sufficient for him to bring them to the other dangers of Galveston. ⁵⁷ Meanwhile he dined from china plate and linen at a well-stocked table, highlighted by excellent wine, and his mistress kept his house neat and orderly as if he were a middle-class Royal Street merchant in New Orleans.⁵⁸

All the while that Jean dealt with Long and Pierre and the Spaniards and their foes, the business of privateering and selling contraband continued. Rebuilding the smuggling operation required Jean to keep the flow of slaves going to the Sabine barracks and on into Louisiana. The market was stronger than ever into mid-1819. "The only prevailing thirst of this country appears to be the accumulation of wealth for the purpose of possessing slaves, the bane of every happy country," observed a United States naval agent on an inspection tour that January.⁵⁹ A year earlier, on April 20, 1818, when Congress struck a blow at the illegal African slave trade by passing legislation allowing for the seizure of ships carrying such blacks and a reward of 50 percent of the proceeds to those responsible for such captures, it included the sale of the captured slaves in the proceeds to be divided.

Imaginative investors conceived the idea of sending agents to the West Indies to buy cargoes of blacks at a third of the price they would fetch in Louisiana and then ship them into the Mississippi, stopping at the Balize. From that point the agent left the ship and informed the authorities in New Orleans of an illicit cargo, not mentioning his own role in bringing the slaves into American waters. Beverly Chew's people seized the cargo and sold the slaves at auction, by common consent at a price far below market value. The Treasury took its half of the proceeds and the informing agent the rest for his employers. A slave that cost $200 in the Indies might go to the agent for $300 at auction, being legalized in the process. With his rebate of $150, the agent or original buyer was out of pocket $350 but now had a slave he could sell lawfully for $600 to $1,000 or more. Soon rumors told of a host of such cargoes being brought in and more than 10,000 slaves dispersed, though this was surely an exaggeration. Others in New Orleans swore they knew of only one such cargo by the end of 1818. ⁶⁰

That gave some enterprising men an idea. Several would employ the scheme, but it seems to have found its most ardent practitioners in the Bowie brothers of Rapides Parish. Having left Long's campaign and returned home, James and Rezin Bowie received a visit from their former comrade Warren Hall, who made them aware of the money to be made from the slaves coming into Galveston.⁶¹ The brothers realized that if they bought slaves from Laffite, who was still selling them at one dollar a pound, and brought them overland into Louisiana, they did not have to risk selling them to buyers to make a profit. All they had to do was inform the authorities of the slaves' whereabouts and then capitalize on the new Congressional legislation. Once seized, the slaves would be sold at public auction, and half the proceeds would go to the Bowies for being informants. Better yet, at auction the Bowies could afford to buy the slaves themselves, knowing that they would be reimbursed half of the purchase price in their reward. Then the slaves would be legally "laundered," and the brothers would be free to sell them on the open market to anyone. A slave that cost $140 could bring $500 or more at the auction, meaning a $250 rebate to the Bowies. Already they had a profit of $110 on their original investment. Early in 1819 a prime male slave sold for as much as $1,800, meaning that when they resold their new slave on the current market, they could turn a $140 investment into a profit of over $1,400. Even when prices dropped due to a cotton shortage later in the year, the gain to be made was still astronomical.⁶²

The Bowies and others put the new variant on the trade into operation in the early part of the year, and continued it intermittently as long as Laffite ruled the island.⁶³ The Bowies once or twice went to Galveston itself, and James Bowie seems to have struck up something of an acquaintance with Jean Laffite during the visits, and probably learned from him some of the old slaving contacts such as the notorious slave smuggler Charles Mulholland. ⁶⁴ The practice came at some risk, and Mulholland and another Bowie associate, James Reeves of Opelousas, as well as Champlin's partner Adams, were all soon brought up on charges of illegally importing large numbers of slaves.⁶⁵

Meanwhile the trade in other contraband goods remained brisk, encouraged by high consumer prices in New Orleans due to tariffs. Even staples such as produce commanded strong prices, because the cotton boom so obsessed planters that they would not waste profitable land on growing vegetables. Oysters went for a dollar per hundred, an enormous increase in price. In a renewed effort to curtail the trade, on September 7 the Treasury ordered out of New York a second revenue cutter, the Louisiana, for Chew to station off the Teche. Chew could also have the revenue cutter the Alabama, originally destined for Mobile, if he needed it.⁶⁶ Washington wanted the privateers out of business, for they no longer needed them to distract and weaken Spain.

On the night of September 27 a dozen armed men with blackened faces broke into the home of James Lyons in lower St. Landry Parish. They were led by George Brown, who had sought a privateering commission from Laffite earlier that summer. Laffite kept him waiting six weeks pending new authorization Pierre might deliver from one of the juntas. Finally Humbert gave Brown a commission, but Laffite added to it an admonition to take only Spanish goods. Instead, Brown took two armed boats up the Mermenteau River, and thence into the Bayou Queue de Tortue to the Lyons home. His men tied Lyons and his wife and children, then pretended to be customs inspectors and ransacked the house. When they left, they took anything of value, including Lyons's ten slaves.⁶⁷ Despite the men's attempts at disguise, few doubted that they were from Galveston. Impelled by the momentum of events and crackdown on corsairs mandated after the Adams-Onis Treaty, Patterson reacted at once, ordering an armed vessel to patrol the coast between the Balize and Galveston. Its mission was to interdict the smuggling, but if it gleaned information that could justify a strike at Galveston, Patterson would be willing to countenance the idea though the island belonged to Spain.

Patterson gave Lieutenant John R. Madison, commander of the Lynx, the assignment. With him was Lieutenant James Mcintosh, who lost his ship the Firebrand in a severe storm at Pass Christian July 28 and had been onshore awaiting orders ever since.⁶⁸ When the Lynx made ready to leave Charleston, she carried a long twelve-pounder and half a dozen twelve-pound carronades, with a complement of fifty-seven officers and men. She could face anything the privateers put on the water.⁶⁹ Madison soon took several privateer and prize schooners in the Gulf, then headed his ship toward the mouth of the Mermenteau, where he sent Mcintosh upstream in ship's boats. Mcintosh learned that two pirogues had passed there the night before headed for Galveston, with men aboard who said they served Laffite and had robbed citizens and outraged women. They sounded very much like Lyons's attackers. For the next several days Mcintosh hunted for the miscreants, often just missing Brown's force until he surprised them and captured their boats. The fugitives escaped, but Mcintosh found Brown's commission, dated August 29, 1819, and signed by Humbert.⁷⁰

On the evening of November 5 someone on Galveston Island saw a large signal fire blazing on Bolivar Point. Laffite ordered an inquiry, and when told that about a dozen hungry, ragged men there wanted aid, sent over a small sailboat. In the process he learned that their leader was George Brown. If Laffite did not know of the Lyons robbery, he did within hours of Brown and three of his companions setting foot on Galveston. Left unpunished, Brown's example could spread and bring untold problems with the United States.

Laffite wasted no time in convening a trial and empanelling a court of three judges and thirteen jurors on the morning of November 6. The accused were allowed to give statements, but the court found them guilty and sentenced them to death. At noon that same day they hanged Brown from a gibbet erected on a point overlooking the pass where all incoming vessels would see him. Then came a test of Laffite's leadership. The population on the island appealed for clemency for the remaining three convicted, but left it to the governor to decide. He knew from experience that his men would stand for justice only to a point, but he could not risk a pardon that might incite others to similar crimes. He put the men in a boat and banished them from the island, sending them as he put it, "out into the wild to repent their crimes."⁷¹

The next morning, through a dense fog, people on the island saw a ship's masts outside the bar. Madison had intended only to patrol the coastline but offshore winds had driven him toward the island and in that fog on the morning of November 7 he had no choice but to drop anchor.⁷² Almost at once he saw a sailboat heading along the coast toward the harbor, and recovered from it a man in tatters who admitted to being one of the Brown fugitives. He told Madison that he and his companions had tossed their weapons into the Mermenteau when they saw Mcintosh approach, and then stumbled through the forest until they reached Bolivar Point two nights previous. Four of his companions were now with Laffite. He was on his way to join them when Madison caught him.⁷³

Laffite may or may not have observed the sailboat through the fog, but he knew the Lynx was there and soon demanded an explanation of why she was anchored off his coastline. Galveston was a port of the Republic of Texas, he was its governor, and the Lynx was violating its sovereignty. If Madison had any business in being there, he must present his requests directly to Laffite. Should Madison attempt to enter the harbor "in a hostile manner," Laffite would "rebut your intentions at the expense of my life."⁷⁴ It was the usual hyperbole, but it bought Jean time to think. Madison, who later claimed that he never got Laffite's letter, sent Mcintosh to Laffite with a message⁷⁵ demanding answers to questions about the whereabouts and condition of the men he sought. Madison included in his note a peremptory order that they be handed over to him, along with the stolen slaves and other goods.⁷⁶

Laffite bristled and wrote an equally stiff, even threatening, reply that Mcintosh refused to deliver until certain expressions were modified. Pleading his imperfect command of English, and no intent to give offense, Laffite altered his response and sent it back via Mcintosh.⁷⁷ He told Madison of the execution of Brown and the banishment of the others. "I thought, not having here much of a prison, that it would be fitting to send them out among the beasts," Jean said. "I beg your forgiveness, Sir, if this condemnation is not completely according to the rules, but I am waiting every day for the supreme authorities to advise me in giving form to my government." Now, however, at Madison's request he would send a boat after them and hand them over once taken. Still he thought his action of the day before would send abroad a message that "the pirates and those other malefactors will know that it will not be at Galveston that they can seek refuge and be free of punishment for the crimes they commit."

If Madison would care to come ashore and accept the governor's hospitality, Laffite promised to "inform you of all the details you could ask for on the subject of all the infamies that are committed on these shores."⁷⁸ He also sent a copy of his commission from Long to establish his authority as governor, and the request that should the Lynx pay a call on Long at Bolivar Point to look for the remaining fugitives, Madison would tell the filibuster that Laffite had shown Madison and Mcintosh "the most friendly, generous and hospitable" treatment possible and promised them every assistance in capturing the thieves. It was Laffite's acknowledgment of Long as his civil superior in the new republic, but also a suggestion that Long cooperate. ⁷⁹ The last thing Laffite needed was for Long to give sanctuary to the miscreants, and thus bring down American authorities on both of them.

The weather suddenly became so severe that the Lynx did not dare remain close to shore at anchor, and that evening Madison took her out to sea, where for a few days she rode out the storm. Meanwhile Laffite's boat found the three banished fugitives and brought them to Galveston. When Madison and the Lynx returned, Mcintosh came ashore to take charge of the thieves.⁸⁰ The wind prevented Mcintosh from returning to the Lynx with the prisoners, however, leaving him to enjoy the typical entertainment of Laffite's house. During their conversation, Laffite revealed some of his style of management in dealing with the kind of men under him. "I understand the management of such men perfectly," he said. He knew just how far to go with them without pushing them too far. Indeed, the reason he did not execute all of the men in custody was that he knew his men would stand for one example being made, and that one a ringleader, but to do more would have led to their questioning his use of power. "I made it appear that I considered the example sufficient, and retained my control." Laffite also entertained Mcintosh with hunting and games, and more of his fund of stories, and the lieutenant amused himself by gleaning what he could learn of the island's strength and defenses to pass on to his commander. When the guest was at last able to leave with his prisoners, Laffite said he regretted Mcintosh could not stay longer. "My friend Lieut. Mcintosh was much pleased with the attention and politeness of Lafitte," Madison would tell Patterson, and Mcintosh left feeling that he had met a man who "if he had his vices had also his virtues." ⁸¹

By November 23 the Lynx and her prisoners were in New Orleans, and soon three more of Brown's men were arrested. Livingston defended one of the men turned over by Laffite, but all were convicted at the same time as Desfarges and the crew of the Le Brave. The timing was unfortunate, in that by hanging Brown, Jean Laffite had set the standard of punishment for men guilty of outright piracy.⁸² Soon the press gave the details of Jean Laffite's own justice to pirates.⁸³ Within the published documents and accounts of the episode lurked some troubling issues. Madison was supposed to apprehend the pirates who robbed Lyons and bring them back, not countenance a kangaroo trial by Laffite. For the navy to be seen to be treating with Laffite and Long as if they were recognized authorities of an independent Texan republic embarrassed and compromised United States authorities in both their efforts to crack down on piracy and to enforce the Adams-Onis Treaty. Federal authorities were openly opposed to Long's enterprise, as it threatened the treaty, which Spain had not yet ratified. They also wanted Galveston broken up before it started an international incident that might hazard the treaty. Laffite's request that Madison inform Long of what transpired on Galveston suggested some kind of alliance between the pirates and the filibusters. The apparent alliance was bad for Spain, bad for the United States, and would prove bad for the Laffites.