The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  It was time to escalate their business. Jean engaged Antoine Lavergne, currently a baker in New Orleans but a man with privateering experience, to come to Grand Isle and oversee fitting out the ship that winter. Like many another corsair, Lavergne was often known to his crew by an alias, in his case Cadet Patte Grasse, or just Captain Cadet. Shortly after the turn of the year, he had the massive 136-ton, single-decked schooner ready.56 Significantly, the Laffites seem not to have considered trying to secure a legitimate American letter of marque for her. The federal government had authorized a limited number of such commissions to be issued at New Orleans, as at Charleston, Boston, and elsewhere, and by the late spring of 1813 eleven were granted—one of them to Beluche for his vessel the Spy.57 There were too many restrictions, however, too much oversight for the Laffites' liking, and a share of the takings had to go to the government, which would depress profits unacceptably. It was easier and more expedient to buy a commission from Gariscan, or to buy his commission with his ship. 58 If they acquired La Diligent about the same time that their first schooner was ready to sail under Jannet, then they may have used Gariscan's commission to try to legitimize prizes taken by the schooner, but the one commission could hardly cover the schooner, the Dorada, and now La Diligent. And despite Pierre's later claim that they paid for a commission in New Orleans, probably purchased from Gariscan, the possibility remains that they simply did not have one, which made them pirates.59

  Meanwhile the Laffites assigned Jannet as master of the vessel, and then began enlistments in New Orleans to make up the eighty-four common seamen needed to run the ship. Among them were Laurent Maire, the helmsman whom the Laffites already knew, and artillerists, quartermasters, cooks, and six officers besides Jannet and Jean, including another experienced corsair, Pierre François Laméson. All told, the Laffites had to pay out more than $1,000 by the time they completed the ship's crew.60 The outfitting would be expensive as well. In addition to the cost of the vessel herself, the price of a set of anchors could be $192 or more, sufficient cable for anchoring might run $338, and then pork for the crew cost $18 a barrel, and sugar twenty cents a pound for the coffee that cost thirty.61 While the profit from the Laffites' slave sales should have been more than sufficient to cover the expense, apparently it was not, for Pierre was still borrowing several hundred dollars in the middle of February, most likely to meet the debts incurred in victualing and crewing the ship.62

  Armed with a dozen fourteen-pounder cannon, eighty muskets, an equal number of cutlasses, and twenty pairs of pistols, La Diligent was formidable. Jean had gone to New Orleans late in January, probably to pay debts and to raise more money for outfitting, by disposing of some of the latest cargo as well as selling a slave, but soon he was back on the coast.63 Perhaps the ship's strength made the Laffites more daring, for now Jean decided to take command of La Diligent himself and to take her with the prize cargo from the Dorada directly to New Orleans.

  Late in February Jean sailed La Diligent to the Balize, and then dropped anchor. He knew that the harbor officials were well on to the trick of pleading damage at sea. Instead, he wrote a letter to the French consul in the city, identifying his ship as a French privateer whose commission had expired on her way to New York. Claiming that he was aware of the harbor officials' "persecutions" of French corsairs who tried to refit or supply in New Orleans, or to sell their prize merchandise, he sent his ship's papers to the consul—no doubt including Gariscan's genuine expired commission—and asked the consul to keep them secure for him and to get him permission to come into port to sell his goods. Laffite added that his crew's enlistments were expiring and he feared they would not stay with him, as they had not been paid. He appealed to the consul for an advance on the money due his crewmen and a letter authorizing payment of the balance that he could present for redemption to the French consul general in New York, as well as a recommendation to issue him letters of marque for a "new expedition" or else to return to a port in France itself.

  Laffite sent the letter and ship's papers by one of his officers who delivered them in the city before the end of the month.64 The ruse appears to have worked. J. B. Laporte, the interim French consul in New Orleans, apparently got the vessel permission to come upriver, though perhaps not all the way to New Orleans, then sent his vice consul to visit the ship, bringing with him the necessary forms. Jean Laffite, however, was not aboard. He went ashore somewhere on the river, knowing that by this time a warrant might have been issued for him in connection with his arrest by Holmes in November. Jannet simply told Laporte that Laffite had fallen ill and gone ashore, putting Jannet in charge.65

  Pierre Laffite met with them now, and told the official that La Diligent belonged to him and that he had paid for her outfitting in New Orleans, a half-truth at best. The consular official accepted it all the same. He assembled the crew and told them that other French privateers were also in the river, then took down the names of the crewmen, mustered them into French service, read them the articles of war, and explained to them the proportion of any future prize money to which they would be entitled—all of which was necessary if the consul was to authorize their being paid.66 He then reported back to Laporte, who allowed disbursement of $732 to the crew as one month's pay in advance, pending their arrival in New York.

  Laporte had just unwittingly helped to defray most of the enlistment costs paid out of the Laffites' pockets. He also gave the Laffites what amounted to a one-month extension on the already expired commission, which was not theirs in the first place. Had he paid careful attention to their birthplaces, he might have noted that the crew formed a perfect cross section of the privateers then working the Gulf: France, Germany, Italy, San Domingue, Greece, Portugal, Buenos Aires, England, Holland, Mexico, and Guatemala, as well as the United States.67 And there was more to it than that, for Pierre also turned over to the vice consul a share approaching one-third of the proceeds of the latest sale of contraband in the city. This may have been legitimate fees; more likely it was a bribe for the vice consul and perhaps for Laporte himself.68

  The extension on the letter of marque would allow La Diligent to pass by United States authorities long enough to get to Cartagena, where the Laffites could hope to get a new and legitimate commission—or as legitimate as any Cartagenan commission might be. However, the customs officials were keeping an eye on the vessel. Fraser put an officer aboard La Diligent as soon as she came upriver after he discovered that she had prize goods and several slaves aboard. He also kept an eye on the comings and goings of the crewmen, noting that most of the men aboard were discharged, while new crewmen were coming aboard as late as April 21 preparatory to her making sail. He was not sufficiently vigilant to catch the fact that Laffite and Jannet commanded, though, for Fraser believed that Gariscan was still captain when that corsair was even then in Cartagena. 69

  In fact, on April 22 in New Orleans Pierre wrote a letter to Gariscan, to be taken to Cartagena aboard La Diligent. He told Gariscan that he had two prizes to send to Cartagena, and asked his help in seeing them through the bureaucracy of the admiralty court for condemnation, either for sale or for commissioning as more Laffite corsairs. La Diligent had not brought any prizes with her into the Mississippi, so these must have been vessels held at Barataria that La Diligent could pick up and convoy after she left New Orleans. The fact that Pierre asked Gariscan for his help with the authorities in Cartagena made it evident that this would be a new experience for the Laffites.70

  Pierre went on to add that "my intention is fixed to leave this country." He begged Gariscan to send him commissions to cover all of his vessels, the Dorada, La Diligent, and a third prize he expected to outfit as a corsair, and promised to place them under Cartagena's new flag—three concentric rectangles of red, yellow, and green in descending sizes, with an eight-pointed white star in the center—as soon as he received the letters of marque. "This would be doing for me the exceptional service of a friend," Pierre said, "on account of which I would give you proof of my a
ppreciation," a scarcely veiled promise of a bribe. Pierre also revealed where his sentiments lay in the warfare that had engulfed Europe. He cheered the October defeat of Wellington's army at Burgos, Spain, and said that from what he saw of political affairs as related in the New Orleans press, he anticipated "a happy future."71

  It is the only political sentiment ever known uttered by one of the Laffites. It may have been the patriotic feeling of a French-born supporter of Napoleon, or it may just as well have been the business judgment of a man who realized that so long as Napoleon held out over the powers arrayed against him, privateering against British and Spanish ships could continue.

  Pierre's decision to abandon Louisiana grew out of several factors, and may have been rather sudden. The encounter with Holmes was a warning that the authorities now knew some of their smuggling routes, and might interfere with their business more regularly hereafter. Indeed, the past December the secretary of the navy had rebuked Commodore Shaw for not putting down the Baratarian enterprise.72 Moreover, shots had been fired and a man killed, the brothers' first confrontation with the potential cost of doing their sort of business. If they needed further object lessons, it appeared that the district court was finally taking piracy seriously. On February 15 a grand jury returned several indictments for piracy, and throughout the ensuing months the court docket would be crowded with piracy trials. Though they all ended in acquittal, they were a warning.73

  Perhaps most immediately of concern, however, was the fact that criminal and civil law had caught up with the Laffites. As early as April 7 Grymes asked that the district court order the brothers' arrest for the November smuggling episode, charging that their actions warranted fines totaling $24,025.04.74 The next day the arrest order went out, summoning them to appear in court on April 19 to make their plea and present their defense, if any, or else face judgment by default. The court demanded bail in the amount of the total anticipated fine plus $500 for each brother. When the appointed day came, neither appeared, and when an officer of the court went to their presumed lodgings and known haunts in the city, he could find neither man.75 The next day the court ordered them to appear on July 19, or again face judgment by default.76

  Jean was probably on Grand Isle as usual, but Pierre had been in the city. In fact, three days before Hall ordered his arrest, he was arrested, though not by the district court. On April 5, before Grymes approached Judge Hall's bench, an order went out from the local judicial court to take into custody on charges of armed robbery several men including Lameson, Jannet, Gambi, and "Peter Laffite, and Laffite, Junior, brother of the latter." The men from whom they had taken the silver on their first prize had filed suit. Again Jean eluded arrest by his absence, and Pierre spent no more than a few hours in jail before his old friend Robin and Paul Gaudin posted an $18,000 bond—rather surprising since Robin had not collected on the debt already owed him by Pierre.77

  Perhaps already anticipating the need to leave town, Pierre had borrowed another $1,500 from the ever-accommodating Robin less than a week before his arrest.78 Laffite may have planned to leave aboard his ship before the arrest order, but now everything changed. La Diligent's departure was imminent, but given the possibility that civil and federal authorities would search her—especially as it was known that he owned the vessel—taking that route was now too risky. Thus he had to write to Gariscan, as he would not be able to state his case in person when the ship reached Cartagena. That done, a few days before the end of the month Pierre quietly stole out of New Orleans with about ten newly recruited crewmen, chiefly mulattoes, and headed up the Mississippi. Neither he nor Jean would be seen openly in the city streets again for more than a year, though Pierre soon abandoned the notion of going to Cartagena, and would never set foot in the privateer haven.79

  Pierre went as far as Donaldsonville, where he arrived April 30, making little or no effort to hide his presence once beyond the confines of New Orleans. Indeed, one of the few people living in the village took special note of the arrival of "the Celebrated M. La Fite" that day, not least because there had been a good bit of recent Laffite activity in the vicinity. In fact, Pierre found Jean waiting for him, probably by prearrangement, Jean having arrived only the day before. Jean had been busy since leaving La Diligent. At the beginning of April he turned up in Donaldsonville with a motley assemblage of about forty free blacks and mulattoes, Spaniards, Americans, and more. He had reportedly fled from the seacoast of St. Mary Parish, one hundred miles west of Grand Isle, an area that many residents still called the Attakapas. With naval surveillance off Barataria and the Lafourche increasing, the corsairs sometimes tried unloading their prizes at other anchorages and beaches.

  Indeed, in May 1813 a privateer bringing a prize into Barataria Bay found not fellow corsairs there but American authorities, who chased and captured him and his prize.80 The St. Mary coast, chiefly Atchafalaya Bay, afforded an excellent alternative. Bayou Atchafalaya flowed into it, and via that waterway pirogues could pass northward some thirty miles to Lake Verret. On the eastern shore of the lake the old Attakapas Canal gave access to Bayou Lafourche less than ten miles distant, at a little settlement called Canal that would soon be renamed Napoleonville. From there it was a short trip to Donaldsonville, and on to the markets of New Orleans.

  Jean sent the men to the city right away while he stayed in Donaldsonville for a week, possibly cementing business arrangements with local men who would help him in the future by hiding contraband on their plantations. Then he went downriver to New Orleans, arriving within a day or two of the issuance of Grymes's arrest order. Jean did not wait for the court date, of course, or to be arrested. He may have left aboard La Diligent, but more likely he found another way back to the coast, for by April 29 he was in Donaldsonville again, followed by rumors that he had taken another prize. Now as soon as Pierre arrived, Jean informed him of the arrangements made in Donaldsonville, and the brothers and Pierre's recruits left in pirogues to go down the Lafourche to bring the latest cargo up the bayou.81

  The prize that Pierre wanted to commission as a third privateer for the brothers' fleet was waiting for them, too. On May 1 the Dorada had hoisted French colors and taken another Spaniard, the schooner Louisa Antonia, four days out of Vera Cruz with coin and cargo worth about $30,000. Prize, crew, and passengers were brought back to Barataria, and there buyers from New Orleans snapped up the cargo of cochineal. The corsairs held the sale on the deck of the prize, bale by bale, and then distributed the crew's shares to each man according to his rank.82 Pierre and Jean kept the silver and the indigo found aboard for themselves, and soon smuggled the merchandise into New Orleans, where they kept it hidden at the home of one of their associates. They then put yet more recruits from New Orleans aboard the Louisa Antonia, which they armed partially by stripping a smaller, less seaworthy privateer schooner. They convinced a Spaniard captured with one of their prizes to enlist aboard her for a cruise and make a new set of Cartagenan colors for her, and when she was ready they renamed her the Petit Milan. With pardonable pride, the Laffites looked on to see their newest corsair riding at anchor alongside the Dorada, now commanded by Louis Fougard, and Jannet's La Diligent.83 Their three vessels probably comprised one of the largest privately owned corsair fleets operating on the coast, and the most versatile. With the large La Diligent, the hermaphrodite brig Dorada, and the smaller schooner Petit Milan, their flotilla included vessels suited to every condition on the Gulf.

  The new schooner went out on sortie before summer, the Laffites sending her in tandem with the Dorada. In command of the schooner was the Italian Vincent Gambi, who would prove to be as aggressive as any man working for them, and before long he took a Spanish schooner loaded with dry goods that he brought back to sell at Cat Island some fifteen miles west of the mouth of the Lafourche. The Laffites took half the proceeds as their share of the profits, while the rest went to the crews of their ships.84

  When the Dorado, went out on her own and came in again, she brought a schooner laden
with tobacco taken off Cuba, and again the brothers outfitted the prize for privateering, giving her two six-pounder cannon and twenty-nine men. This time they fitted her out at Terrebonne Bay, thirty-five miles west along the coast from Grand Isle, since Captain Shaw's gunboats were showing themselves off Barataria85—though perhaps the Laffites need not have bothered, for Shaw continued to complain that his little flotilla was entirely inadequate for dealing with the "Marine Banditti."86 The Laffites called their new ship Sarpis, and put their helmsman Laurent Maire in command.

  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.