The Pirates Laffite
Page 9
That month the navy finally came after the trade at its source when it attacked Barataria. The reason for the change in policy was probably a combination of Shaw's frustration and the arrival at the New Orleans Naval Station of twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Daniel Tod Patterson, a man with two driving motivations—a hunger for prize money, and an antipathy toward freebooters no doubt encouraged when he spent some time as the prisoner of Tripolitan pirates.
Under Shaw's orders, Lieutenant Francis Gregory took his Gunboat No. 162 to the vicinity of Grand Terre, and there on September 5 met a man willing to inform on the privateers in return for a bribe, demonstrating the proverbial absence of honor among thieves. The informant told Gregory of the privateers' routes and said he expected some pirogues to be leaving the coast shortly with prize goods for the interior. The next morning Gregory followed up on the information, and soon he saw about twenty pirogues behind a sandbar. He opened fire on them and they immediately scattered. He then sailed on until shortly after noon when he came up on Grand Terre and spied the three-masted polacre La Divina Pastora aground in about six feet of water inside the bay with her masts taken down, clearly being stripped prior to destruction.
Gregory sent a shot toward her, and the men aboard raised the French flag in hopes of fooling him into thinking she was a friendly vessel in distress. But the lieutenant spotted privateer schooners tied to either side of her. One was the Sophie and the other La Vengeance, one of them yet another investment of the indefatigable Sauvinet, and crewmen from both vessels were even then unloading cargo from their prize. The twenty pirogues he had seen earlier floated nearby, loaded with prize cargo and guarded by perhaps one hundred men. Gregory tried to take his vessel through the pass but became stuck on a sandbar, and night had almost fallen by the time he got afloat and inside the bay. By then it was too late to attack, and he decided to wait until morning. But then he saw flames and realized that the privateers were setting fire to their prize. He sent an officer and several men in a launch into the bay to try to save the ship.
When they got to the scene they found one of the privateer schooners burning and adrift, while the other lay lashed to La Divina Pastora, itself just starting to catch the blaze. Gregory's men cut loose the burning schooner, then boarded the La Divina. Her cargo included more than sixty-three hundred packages of writing paper, which the boarders now found littered over the decks to spread the fire, brandy casks knocked open to expose their flammable spirits, and gunpowder strewn about waiting to go off. Miraculously, they doused the fire before the flames hit a half barrel of powder lying open in the magazine surrounded by bottles of powder, in turn ringed with slow-burning matches, and powder trails leading to yet more powder and paper. All that saved the vessel was that the privateers had fled in their pirogues so hurriedly that no one thought to light the fuses, and the flames from the burning schooner tied alongside moved slowly. Even then some of the privateers were close enough to shoot at the rescue party from the mainland, and the naval seamen sent scores of rounds into the darkness.34
Gregory's men saved two-thirds of the prize's cargo, and the prize herself, which they brought back to New Orleans, much to the delight of Spanish consul Morphy. 35 With Livingston representing him, Patterson libeled the vessel as a lawful prize in the district court in November, and by February 18, 1812, she had been ordered sold and the proceeds shared between Patterson and his sailors and the owners of the ship.36 Nevertheless, this blow to the smugglers proved little more than an inconvenience compared to the profits to be made.
The open trade of some merchants with the smugglers was evidence enough of that. In January 1812 a newly empanelled grand jury made a statement to the court, and through it to all revenue officials, decrying the fact that "many facilities have been afforded to the persons engaged in this violation of the laws of the United States by characters considered respectable in this Community." It brought disgrace and dishonor upon them all, the grand jury declared, as well as injuring the revenue of the nation at a time when relations with Great Britain approached the point of war.37 No doubt the grand jury declaration was prompted by President Madison's annual message on November 5, 1811, when he complained of "the practice of smuggling, which is odious everywhere, and particularly criminal in free governments." It was worse, he said, "when it blends with a pursuit of ignominious gain a treacherous subserviency, in the transgressors, to a foreign policy adverse to that of their own country."
Yet the privateers and their retail merchants in New Orleans were bold enough to confront their critics in the city's press. On December 18 one of them who signed himself only as "The Agent of the Freebooters" sent a letter arguing that the privateers were patriots, too, simply trying to punish the British and the Spanish, and at the same time do a civic benefaction to the people of Louisiana by introducing cheap goods to "prevent the total stagnation of trade during the existence of the Non-intercourse Act." Indeed, he declared, "without us there would not be a bale of goods at market." Warming to his theme, he cited "the open manner in which our business is done," and concluded from the ineffectual attempts at control and policing by the authorities, that "the government of the United States has no objection either to the fitting out of our prizes and the sale of their cargoes, without troubling ourselves about the payment of duties." The inaction of the authorities proved "the protection and license we enjoy, to plunder when we please, and import without entry what we think proper."
Pointing out that they sold their goods at low prices in return for cash "in these hard times," he even dared to promote their business by publishing an announcement that "the association company of free booters have recommended their calling, and have formed depots at Barrataria, the mouths of Fourche, and Teche, at the Chandeliers, and Breton Islands, where they sell ships and cargoes by wholesale; and if their old stands in Conde and Toulouse streets can be obtained, will there open by retail." He then referred to the recent sale of some of the smuggled goods from La Divina Pastora and the fact that the men who handled the sales—Sauvinet probably being one of them—made over $30,000, which ought to be an encouragement to other merchants to join in the contraband business. "There are still a vast quantity of goods for sale; ships, brigs, schooners, and several hulls, to be disposed of," he added. Even the weather wanted people to trade with the contrabandists, for the annual rise in the Mississippi would make it easy to reach their depots in Barataria.38
Who this "Agent of the Freebooters" was is uncertain, though it is easy to see in it the taunting hand that would characterize a few products of the pens of both Laffites before long. Now might not have been a good time for a Laffite to be thumbing his nose at authorities, however. The grand jury claimed not to know the identities of "the persons engaged in this nefarious practice." Yet by now rumor must have associated the brothers with the trade. Else how would people in town have known where to direct prospective slave buyers as early as 1809?
Certainly there would be enough privateers to continue the business. On November n, 1811, Cartagena officially declared its independence and became the headquarters of the newly declared United Provinces of New Granada, including portions of Colombia and Venezuela. Though no nation recognized Cartagena's independence, and Spain retook most of Venezuela by the following summer, New Granada's President Manuel Rodriguez Torices would in time resort to handing out privateering commissions to men willing to prey on Spanish shipping and that of Spain's ally Britain.39 French and San Domingue sailors filled Cartagena's streets, and soon Cartageneros and San Domingans became privateers and pirates almost interchangeably.40 Aury and Renato Beluche went to Cartagena to take their commissions as lieutenants in the Granadan service early in 1813, and some among the Barataria-based privateers soon followed.41
Ironically, newly independent Cartagena granted equal rights to whites and free blacks and outlawed the slave trade, but did not outlaw slavery. While sailing under Cartagena's colors and commissions, the privateers who would bring slave cargoes into Louisiana
in the years ahead were participating in a trade outlawed in Cartagena itself.42 Oblivious of that, when Torices sent agents to Louisiana some months hence, they would seek out the Baratarians, as well as the free colored men from San Domingue and the privateers ejected from Cuba in 1809, all of whom provided natural targets of opportunity. Well before then, however, an even more attractive prize appealed to privateers' hunger for plunder when rumors spread briefly that an expedition would fit out in New Orleans to sail to Cuba and attack Baracoa.43
It was the signal for the explosion of privateering on the Gulf, and with it the rise of a class operating in the gray area between legitimate corsairing and rank piracy. A small army of men stood poised to reap the profits the new trade promised, the Laffites among them, though as yet they were only faces in a crowd. Within the next eighteen months all that would change. The United States would be presented with an organization and daring never before seen, and the challenge of dealing with two impending wars—one with the British, and the other with the privateers.
SIX
Origins of the Laffite Fleet 1811–1813
This said, his brother Pirate's hand he wrung,
Then to his boat with haughty gesture sprung.
Flash'd the dipt oars, and sparkling with the stroke,
Around the waves' phosphoric brightness broke
THE ILLICIT ENTERPRISE had two arms that must be severed if the government was to control the problem. First, the illegal fitting out, arming, and manning of privateers in New Orleans had to be stopped, primarily by the United States Navy; second, the internal trade in contraband goods smuggled from the coast to New Orleans had to be curtailed, and this was the job of the customs and revenue authorities. The difficulty was compounded by the fact that lawful privateers—or at least vessels that could show commissions obtained in Cartagena—also sailed the Gulf.
The privateers bringing goods into Barataria and elsewhere to the Laffite smugglers gave Captain Shaw constant frustration. "The whole of the coast from Vermilion Bay westwardly, round to the Rigolets on the east, appears, in fact, to swarm with pirates,—fitted out, for the most part, at New Orleans," he complained to Washington. He needed vessels capable of cruising on the Gulf, and his were not up to it. The gun vessels were "dull sailors," and not fast enough to compete with the privateers.1
Still he had to try. Vessels in Shaw's flotilla cruised often along the west coast of Louisiana, even stopping at Barataria, though sometimes they could find scarcely a vestige of the Grand Terre operations when they went ashore. 2 On December 27 Shaw sent one of his gunboats after the privateer vessels Mary and Adeline, and it briefly exchanged shots with them a few days later. The privateers forced the gunboat to back off, and went on to take on arms at the mouth of the Lafourche on or about January 26. At virtually the same time Catesby Jones, commanding Gun Vessel No. 156, came upon a privateer schooner anchored at Grand Terre with a crew of eighty or ninety. He fired on her, whereupon she raised sail. But though Jones put several shots through her and her crew was seen throwing guns overboard to lighten ship to keep from sinking, the privateer finally left him behind.3 Jones returned to Barataria and captured a crew belonging to the French privateer Marengo. He discovered that the crew were almost all Americans, enlisted at New York.4 More encounters with French corsairs took place off Grand Terre in February, but with no happy result.5
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department's Revenue Service tried their best. Early in the year Captain George Gibson and his men seized $7,000 to $8,000 worth of contraband goods on Bayou Lafourche.6 Lieutenant Angus Fraser commanding the revenue cutter the Louisiana chased and took a privateer in the Mississippi in February. Her captain, Pierre Cadet, had earlier cleared a ship out of New Orleans under Swedish colors, but once in the Gulf "went directly a privateering," as Fraser put it.7 The next month Fraser took another privateer, the Two Brothers, which had come into New Orleans listing a cargo of rice and flour on her manifest. When he opened the barrels aboard her, he found wine, brandy, and gin hidden within.8
The hapless Louis Aury also fell afoul of the authorities once more. In the past three years he had failed at almost everything. When San Domingue fell to the British, he lost his vessel there in port and escaped to Guadaloupe, where he equipped another.
When the British took Guadaloupe he lost that vessel, too, and came to Louisiana, where he spent $4,500 to buy a boat—only to have it confiscated when authorities caught him illegally outfitting it for privateering. Aury had already sworn vengeance on the British and Spaniards, and now took a share in a French corsair for $2,000. But when he brought her into a United States port, Americans attacked and killed or wounded a dozen of his crew, then burned the boat. Now he hated Americans, too.9
Despite the discomfiture of Aury and Cadet, Captain Shaw continued to report his gunboats "altogether inadequate" to the task of protecting commerce from the pirates and smugglers of the coast. By the summer of 1812, with war with Britain brewing, Shaw had only two brigs and eleven gunboats to guard the coastline under his care. He assigned five of the gunboats to a patrol west of the Balize, a hopelessly outnumbered force as he—and the smugglers—well knew. Experience showed that if his vessels could not stop a privateer on the first fire, the lighter craft quickly outdistanced the navy ships, and he acknowledged grudgingly that the smugglers and pirates were also better sailors than his own. If proof were needed, in May Jones and his gunboat came up against two privateers off Bayou Lafourche, where they had brought in a Spanish prize, but he could not catch them.10 A month later, on June 16, Jones attacked two French privateers and their Spanish prize off Barataria, but was beaten off.11
Philip Grymes died suddenly the previous year, leaving the office of district attorney to be filled on May 4, 1811, by his brother John R. Grymes. But the new Grymes and Judge Hall were no more successful in stopping privateers than the navy.
Meanwhile, another familiar name resurfaced, the determined corsair Dominique. He had been in port the previous spring, purchasing ship's victuals and apparently observing every stipulation of the regulations covering legal privateers in American waters.12 Now, late in August, he brought his vessel the Pandoure up the river to Fort Plaquemines, where the commandant stopped him and Dominique gave the officer a packet addressed to the French consul in New Orleans. 13 He claimed to be out of Bordeaux, with a cargo of sugar and cotton, and explained that in a terrible hurricane on August 19 and 20 he had lost his masts and was nearly killed, and now needed repairs for his ship and a doctor for himself.14 Following procedure, he filed a statement of the damage done to his vessel, and at the same time claimed that his commission was about to expire, and that he needed to get a letter of permission from the consul allowing him to return to France after repairing his ship and removing her armaments.15
Dominique, for a change, appeared to be a lawful privateer with a genuine commission. At least, the authorities did not interfere with him. He prepared a careful list of his prizes taken since he left Bordeaux, and valued his cargo at $36,921, for which sales brought in $20,721.38. He even set aside the prescribed percentages of his profits for the expenses of the local consulate, for invalids from the French navy, and for the care of French prisoners of war in England.16 He inventoried everything on his ship, from armaments to barrels of biscuits, prior to liquidation.17 Then on October 15 he sold the Pandoure for $7,500.18 Her commission being expired, she was of no more use to him, and with the profits from his voyage he could buy another vessel when he was ready to put to sea once more.19
All of this activity meant trade for the Laffites—who, incredibly, had not yet appeared in any charges for smuggling.20 Certainly the district court prosecuted merchants who tried to bring merchandise into the city without paying proper customs duty, as José La Rionde found out when he was sued for failure to pay duty on a cargo of coffee and brown sugar from Mexico.21 But perhaps the Laffites had a friend in a high place, for rumor said that Daniel Clark, currently with the United States consular office in Ne
w Orleans, was in their pay, and that was why Pierre could sell goods with impunity out of their reputed warehouse on Chartres Street. 22
When customs officials tried to go after the shipments, they had little better fortune than Shaw's gunboats. "The nature of the coast is peculiarly favourable to their schooners; and the disposition of a very great proportion of the population are unfortunately too favourable to the execution," customs collector Thomas Williams had reported to the secretary of the treasury in March.23 In mid-October 1812 revenue agents did go down a bayou from English Turn to Barataria Bayou, where they encountered several smuggler craft. The smugglers fled and the revenue officers took their booty, but the smugglers attacked that night and recovered their goods—embarrassing to say the least. Perhaps it was this humiliation that led a few weeks later to the first really successful assault on the Laffite enterprise, and the introduction of the Laffites' name on the court docket in New Orleans.
A factor in the smugglers' assault may have been the Laffites' own embarrassment of a sort, or at least Pierre's. He seemed in the main recovered from his stroke, though fits of palsy still struck him, affecting his mood as much as his body. There was good news in his household when Marie presented him with another child, his daughter Rosa, born August 28, but he would scarcely be in New Orleans to see her during the next several months, for his old problems with money haunted him.24 In fact, before long he would have no known residence in the city, meaning that he spent most of his time either with Jean at Grand Isle, or at Donaldsonville, or in one of a few safe homes of associates on the outskirts of New Orleans.25 Throughout 1812 slave sales continued to bring in cash that the Laffites needed to build their enterprise, though seemingly not nearly as much as before. In the first half of the year Pierre lawfully disposed of just eight blacks for $4,270, though he and Jean certainly sold many more at Grand Isle for much greater sums. 26 Still Pierre was no longer sharing the proceeds of legal sales with Robin, with whom his informal partnership had all but ended. Moreover, despite the substantial sums the brothers realized from their smuggled goods, theirs was a costly operation. Proceeds had to be shared with others, supplies had to be purchased for their employees at Barataria, money was needed from one sale to buy the goods for the next, and from time to time cash flow presented a problem, especially given Pierre's history of poor money management and Jean's taste for expensive living and entertainment, which earned him the sobriquet "Gentleman Lafitte" in New Orleans.27