The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  While he later claimed that he first suspected that Lockyer's packet might be of use to the United States, it is more likely that Laffite's initial instinct was that it might be useful to himself. He opened it and found inside four documents.59 The first was a copy of a proclamation dated August 29, issued by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nicholls, then commanding British land forces operating in and off Florida. In it he exhorted Louisianans to assist in liberating themselves from "a faithless, imbecile Government," calling especially on the Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, and British in the area to abolish "the American usurpation in this country." If they rose to his standard, he promised help from the numerous Indians under his command, well armed and trained and commanded by British officers, and the backing of squadrons of British and Spanish ships. Men coming to his aid need have no fear of onerous taxes to carry on an unjust war, and British arms would protect their property and laws. As for the Indians, they were pledged not to harm friends, for "these Brave red men only burn with an ardent desire of satisfaction, for the wrongs they have suffered, to join you in liberating these Southern Provinces from their Yoke, and drive them into those limits formerly prescribed by my Sovereign."60

  Next was a letter from Nicholls addressed directly to "Monsieur Lafite or the Commandant at Barataria." Written three days earlier from Nicholls's headquarters in Pensacola, it called on Laffite "with your Brave followers to enter into the service of Great Britain." In return, Nicholls promised that Laffite would be given the rank of captain in the army, and that after a British victory in the war Laffite and his men would receive generous grants of land. He also guaranteed the security of their persons and property, presumably against retaliation for acts against British shipping, asking only that they immediately cease taking British and Spanish merchantmen. Instead, the Baratarían fleet would be turned over to the command of the naval commodore in the Gulf, Captain William H. Percy. In short, Laffite and his men must become soldiers and abandon their maritime endeavors completely.

  Nicholls also asked that Laffite circulate his proclamation. "Be expeditious in your resolves," he said, enjoining Laffite to make his decision quickly. "You may be a useful assistant to me." Nicholls hinted that he expected soon to mount a serious threat to Louisiana, which to date had seen little of the British other than blockades off the Mississippi. Nicholls's reference to a substantial soldier reinforcement on the way, however, could only mean land operations, and of course the only target on the mainland in Louisiana would be New Orleans. 61

  Laffite also found a letter from Captain Percy directing Lockyer to sail his ship to Barataria to contact Laffite, and substantially reiterating Nicholls's terms, though Percy emphasized that the land bounty would come from "His Majestys colonies in America." Percy, at least, did not expect the United States to survive as a nation. If the Baratarians declined to join in the coming offensive against the Americans, Percy suggested that they be urged to remain neutral and cease their preying on Spanish shipping. If Laffite agreed, Percy ordered Lockyer to coordinate their efforts in annoying the enemy and made it clear that he wanted the Baratarian fleet to join with his own for an attack on Mobile.62

  The fourth document was a letter from Percy to Laffite, dated the previous day. In it Percy revealed a rather less accommodating spirit, and more of the traditional attitude of professional naval officers toward pirates and privateers. Having heard that Laffite had taken and sold British merchantmen, he demanded immediate restitution, and informed Laffite that, should he refuse, Lockyer had orders "to destroy, to his utmost every vessel there, as well as to carry destruction over the whole place," adding that he would give Lockyer all the additional force he might need to do the job. "I trust at the same time that the Inhabitants of Barataria consulting their own interest, will not make it necessary to proceed to such Extremities," he went on to say. They had now the choice of "a war instantly Destructive to them," or cooperation that would only be to their gain. Percy would pay them for their vessels, and any of the privateers who wished to enlist in His Majesty's military or naval forces would be welcomed. If any of them were British subjects, he promised pardon for their offenses against the Crown as soon as they enlisted.63

  As Laffite read the papers, Lockyer elaborated on their intent, emphatically urging Laffite not to let this opportunity escape him. If he did, said Lockyer, he would regret it.64 Laffite asked for a few days to consider and consult with his associates, but Lockyer pressed him, arguing that there should be no need for time to think, as the offer was too good. France and Britain were friends again, and so Frenchmen like Laffite should side with the British. Laffite was an outlaw in America and at this very moment his brother was in jail, quite possibly with the gallows awaiting.65 Laffite would get ahead in the British service, even win promotion perhaps.66 Lockyer also suggested that Nicholls wanted permission to land troops at Grand Isle, using it as a base for a campaign against New Orleans, to which Laffite replied that though he was a smuggler, he "did not intend to fight against the Americans."67 He refused to be pushed, committing himself only to providing an answer in a few days.

  Jean then raised a pretext to leave his house for a short time. Once he was gone, some of the men outside reassembled, rushed in, arrested Lockyer and a marine officer with him, and took them to a cell used for keeping rule breakers and perhaps Spanish prisoners from prizes. According to Lockyer, the men threatened and insulted him, then took from him the papers he had brought and tore them up in front of his face—though they must have been copies as Laffite had the originals in hand.68 John Oliver heard Dominique, feeling vengeful over the British crippling of the Tigre, say he wanted to take the British ship.69 A few called for Lockyer to be hanged—which must have galled him, since the captain was known for his kind and attentive treatment of prisoners who fell into his hands.70

  Somehow Lockyer sent an appeal to Laffite, but Jean could see the temper of his men. He had prevailed over them at the waterline, but now they had ignored his wishes and were clearly in a mood to challenge his authority, even mutiny, if he interfered. Better not to create a situation that could compromise his future sway over them, he concluded, but to wait until he found them more manageable. Consequently, Laffite did not acknowledge that the Englishmen had been arrested, and sent Lockyer's pinnace back to the Sophie with instructions to return in the morning.71

  Laffite spent the balance of the daylight hours at other tasks as if nothing had happened, and that evening met with the leaders of the disaffected men. Speaking as if Lockyer had not been taken, he reminded them that if the officers were harmed, the Baratarians would all be liable to reprisals when they crossed paths with British vessels at sea. Moreover, they would forfeit the chance to learn British intentions and perhaps identify England's spies and collaborators in Louisiana. Laffite left the men to consider what best served their interests, and left Lockyer to spend a very uncomfortable night.

  The next morning, September 4, when the British pinnace returned, the mob arrested its crew as well, and threatened to send them to New Orleans as spies. But as Laffite expected, the unruly men then had what Lockyer described as "a sudden change of mind," and they released the officers.72 Seizing the moment, Laffite immediately walked Lockyer and the others to their pinnace and saw them off. Within the hour the Sophie weighed anchor and stood out of the pass and back into the Gulf, there to await a reply.73

  That afternoon Laffite drafted a letter that he sent to Lockyer, first apologizing for the treatment of the visitors. As for the British offer, he told Lockyer that "indeed, at present, I cannot give you the satisfaction you wish." However, if the British could give him fifteen days, thereafter "I will be entirely at your service." He needed the time to reestablish his control over the men by dealing with three of the ringleaders in the near mutiny, who would be leaving Grand Isle in little more than a week. One of the three, who may have been Dominique, he said would be going to New Orleans, as indeed Dominique did that day, along with Humbert and the rest. Jean needed the
second week to get his affairs in order, but he was essentially accepting the British offer, and with a little flattery thrown in. "You have inspired me with more confidence than perhaps the admiral, your superior, would have done," he told Lockyer. "Therefore it is with you that I would treat; and from you I shall claim, in my term, those services which I may now render you, at proper time and place." Meanwhile Lockyer could communicate with him by sending messages to his house overlooking the pass. 74

  Beyond question Jean had no intention of keeping this bargain. He was buying time to consider a complicated situation. In itself, the British proposal offered him nothing, and even that predicated on American defeat in the war. The pay that the British offered for service as an army captain was scarcely a fraction of what he made from a single good prize. He would be paid for his vessels, but would thereby be out of a frequently lucrative profession. A land bounty was no use to him. He certainly did not intend to become a planter, and he could not sell the land for much as land was cheap just then and could be obtained from the government for almost nothing. Most of all, the Baratarían enterprise would be out of business.

  Laffite already knew that no matter which side won, American or British, his operation within the United States was doomed. This is what made Dominique's coincidental arrival with Humbert, Anaya, and Pedroza so fortuitous, troublesome though Youx might have been with Lockyer. Before they went on to New Orleans, probably within hours of Laffite's letter to Lockyer, Anaya informed Laffite of his new commission as agent, which Jean could not know had little or no validity. Anaya said that soon under the authority of the Mexican congress he would provide privateering commissions for the Baratarían captains, meaning that for perhaps the first time Laffite ships could sail under legitimate papers. He would start work on it as soon as he reached New Orleans and contacted those backers still willing to support Humbert. 75 The old Tampico plan would be on again, and this time legitimized by the Mexican insurgency. It needed only a little time, yet another reason for Laffite to stall Lockyer for a fortnight.

  Jean also needed to bargain some delay from the Americans, and the Britons' approach could serve a purpose. If he turned Lockyer's papers and what he had learned in conversation with the British captain over to authorities in New Orleans, he might win favor, if only temporarily. Laffite surely knew from his informants in the city that Patterson was preparing an expedition to destroy the Baratarian establishment. Anything that delayed this would give him more time to prepare the shift of base to the Mexican coast. The Laffites remained almost entirely silent as to their sympathies in the current war. Certainly they felt no patriotic affection for the United States sufficient to make them obey its laws. Yet like most of French blood, they felt an ancestral enmity for Britain. The Baratarians included many men who had fought against the British on Santiago and Baracoa prior to 1809.76 While most of the brothers' personal and business associates in New Orleans were Frenchmen, they enjoyed good relations with some Americans as well. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint, there was still a hungry market for slaves in the United States, while Britain had outlawed the slave trade in its colonies in 1807 and was considering complete abolition throughout the empire—which would not bode well for Laffite business. Thus, even if self-exiled from their adopted home, the Laffites had a strong self-interest in American victory.

  All things considered, the scale tipped toward informing authorities in New Orleans of the British visit. The choice of whom to approach may not have been difficult. Claiborne or Flournoy would have been the most logical, but Laffite might not expect either to credit something coming from him. He must contact someone who had their ear, and the name that came to mind was Jean Blanque. An immigrant to New Orleans in 1803, the same year Pierre arrived, Blanque was a merchant, onetime slave dealer, and banker who had held successive offices in the territorial government, and at the moment sat in the legislature then in session in New Orleans. Blanque was also an investor in more than one privateer, which likely led to an acquaintance with the Laffites. A few months later a Creole planter would frankly state that "Blanque is regarded as one of the persons financially interested in the piracies of Barataria, which he openly protects." He had also recently been admitted to practice before the federal district court, which might prove useful. 77 It helped, of course, that Blanque was bilingual, and thus Laffite could communicate precisely with him and leave it to Blanque to translate his communications for the Americans.

  Almost immediately after sending Lockyer his temporizing letter, Laffite addressed a letter to Blanque. "Though proscribed by my adoptive country," he claimed, he wrote to prove his loyalty and to demonstrate that "she has never ceased to be dear to me." Informing Blanque of Lockyer's visit, he enclosed the documents handed him by Lockyer. "You will see from their contents the advantages I might have derived from that kind of association," he pointed out, then went on to declare, somewhat tongue in cheek, that "I may have evaded the payment of duties to the custom house; but I have never ceased to be a good citizen; and all the offence I have committed, I was forced to by certain vices in our laws." Warming to hyperbole, he declared that he was making Blanque "the depository of the secret on which perhaps depends the tranquility of our country." Then, having called attention to his patriotism and the importance of his action, he protested that he would be content to let both speak for themselves.

  A second motive for turning the documents over to the Americans emerged. "Our enemies have endeavored to work on me by a motive which few men would have resisted," he said. "They represented to me a brother in irons, a brother who is to me very dear! Whose deliverer I might become." Laffite expressed the hope that in providing this information to the Americans, he might gain Pierre's release. "Well persuaded of his innocence, I am free from apprehension as to the issue of a trial," Jean averred, "but he is sick and not in a place where he can receive the assistance his state requires." In the "name of humanity," Jean asked Blanque to use his influence to free Pierre, resorting to the same type of flattery he used on Lockyer when he added that he thought Blanque to be "a just man, a true American, endowed with all other qualities that are honored in society." Laffite lied outright when he told Blanque that he had refused Nicholls's offer, though of course he had lied to Lockyer when he indicated that he would accept. He told Blanque that he had asked for fifteen days to settle his plans, and expected that the grace period would be granted.78 He sent the letter and accompanying documents to New Orleans by the fastest means, possibly unaware that unfolding events would negate his proposal before Blanque learned of it.

  That night a person or persons unknown crept into the courtyard behind the Cabildo and stopped outside Pierre Laffite's cell. They swung open the bolt that locked the door from the outside and in a matter of seconds Pierre walked out a free man. Not content with this, he and his rescuers released three slave men being held in another cell and stole off into the night to begin the journey to Barataria, though not before Pierre sent a message of his own to Jean Blanque, who may well have assisted the escape.79 When the cells were found empty the next morning, an immediate outcry arose. Few had any doubts as to who had managed the escape. McKeehan took it for granted that smugglers had done the deed, remarking that the jail was well situated for such a clandestine action, being behind the Cabildo and out of sight from the Place d'Arms or the city streets. Indeed, he had predicted when Pierre was arrested months before that someone would break him out whenever the time came that Pierre felt genuinely threatened by the charges against him. 80

  The jailbreak was embarrassing for Sheriff J. H. Holland, especially when the press implied that he had connived in the breakout. McKeehan commented rather pointedly that Laffite "is said to have broken and escaped from prison?—!!!" though he later apologized for the innuendo.81 Still the editor thought "it is not a very pleasant joke on the jailor" to post a mere $1,000 reward for retaking "such a man as this." He regarded the reward offer as nothing but a mockery, and assumed it was done for form's sake rather t
han from an expectation that anyone would bring Pierre in. It was all part and parcel of the defective way the laws were enforced and justice administered in Louisiana, he complained.82

  Spaniards in town had little doubt, too, that Laffite's confederates had freed him. When the break was discovered, Morphy immediately wrote of it to Apodaca, indication that they regarded Laffite as an important component in the filibustering enemy facing them. "With the aid of his companions, [he] was able to climb the walls of the jail and escape," Morphy explained. "It is not rare that this happened, because unfortunately in this city are many individuals involved in the pirate acts he committed and therefore many are interested in saving him at all costs, in order to avoid being discovered." In short, Morphy believed it was city merchants who got Pierre out of jail.83 He may have been right. Even if Jean had plans for getting his brother out, he was not likely behind this break, or he would hardly have bothered to ask Blanque for his assistance. So far as the Spaniards were concerned, the how and who of Pierre's escape were immaterial, for now, "even with all his offenses and enormous crimes," Manrique complained to Apodaca, "he is already walking and free to get back to his horrific practices as he is the meanest of all pirates." 84

  While Pierre was making his way to Grand Isle, and surely before word that he was at large arrived ahead of him, Jean Laffite received information that he thought might be useful in his bargain with Blanque. Somehow he came into possession of a letter from Havana, written August 8 to a recipient in Pensacola, probably taken on a prize brought in on September 6 or 7. The letter contained some details of a British expedition bent on taking Mobile, but told little that Laffite—and now Blanque—did not know from Lockyer's papers. However, the letter went on to say that after taking Mobile, Nicholls intended to push for New Orleans, and place forces at Plaquemine to isolate the Mississippi from the Gulf85