The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  Within days of Jean Laffite's return to New Orleans Pierre's Spanish masters had taken note, no doubt anxious to see what the second brother could tell them.43 For his part, Jean had new circumstances with which to acquaint himself. First there was his first sight of his son Jean Pierre, only four weeks old. 44 Then there was the spacious new house where they would all live. Jean also had past due business to settle, not least with his attorneys Livingston and Grymes for their services in securing compensation for some of his goods lost at Barataria.45 The brothers also engaged in their first legitimate maritime trading. Less than a week after Jean's return, on December 2, Pierre paid $2,049 for a new felucca called the Flora Belle, a single decked, two-masted boat just over forty-three feet long and thirteen feet in the beam, built in Bayou St. John. Displacing twenty-one tons, she drew barely more than four feet of water, and would be able to go anywhere.46 The next day Pierre registered her as the Flying Fish, owner Pierre Laffite, "merchant of New Orleans."47 On December 14, however, Pierre gave the captain he employed for the boat, John Deveze or Davis, power of attorney to sell her.48 Either Pierre lost interest in her very quickly, or else he was already trying to mask his ownership as he had with the Presidente. Old habits died hard.

  Pierre's actions may, in fact, have had something to do with the Presidente, for by this time she was gone for good, a victim of the steadily tightening noose in the hands of Patterson and Duplessis, Pierre's own partners in the "associates." Despite the challenges posed by the loss of Barataria and the increased naval presence off the coastline, the Cartagenan privateers and simple pirates had not abated their efforts to land and sell or smuggle illicit goods, especially after the fall of Cartagena. Britain's mounting efforts to suppress the slave trade helped their business, as did the enactment that year of the United States' first protective tariff, with duties as high as 20 percent on some imported manufactured goods. On April 2 customs inspector John Rollins at the Balize saw the privateer the Comet come to anchor and on going aboard met Captain Mitchell. Mitchell told him quite matter of factly that he had twenty slaves on the ship, fourteen of whom had belonged to the governor of San Andres, and that "he had put to death the Governor and eight soldiers," and was taking the slaves to New Orleans as prize goods. He also admitted to having in his hold six brass six-pounders, forty muskets, and five barrels of powder, but Rollins could see that the seventy-five-ton vessel was riding low in the water, and suspected that a lot more cargo was aboard. 49

  Lieutenant William Lowe and the USS Boxer; then stationed off the Balize, immediately seized the Comet, and on fuller inspection found aboard her about $40,000 of rich plunder and stores taken from the very passengers she had helped to escape Cartagena, and from San Andres, where the "notorious villain" Mitchell committed what Patterson called "the most wanton murders & brutality robbing churches." On May 23 the grand jury handed down three separate piracy indictments against Mitchell and his crew but Patterson gloomily predicted that "like all others who have preceded them they will escape punishment further than a forfeiture of property." He proved to be prescient.50

  The pressure on the smugglers made itself felt by late spring. When more fugitive vessels from Cartagena appeared in the days after the Comet's capture, some loaded half with white refugees and half with slaves to sell, the Boxer sailed after them, then westward along the coast after Lowe heard that "some very suspicious armed vessels" were in the vicinity.51 Lowe seized a cargo of 150 crates of crockery, and on another vessel took wine from Bordeaux.52 In New Orleans the government appointed yet another temporary inspector of customs, John Davis Bradburn, a veteran of the Gutierrez-Magee expedition who had more recently been an officer under Perry assembling volunteers for the Texas invasion.53 No one seemed to catch the anomaly of entrusting enforcement of the revenue laws to a man deeply associated with filibusters so closely linked with privateers, but Bradburn was as much a zealot for the law as for Mexican independence. As a result, merchants who traded in illicit goods experienced the reach of the law, even lowly tailors such as Bernard Bourdin, who was foolish enough to fund the privateer Alerta though his shop sat next door to the customs house.54

  Patterson, accustomed to complaining of his inadequate resources, believed by April that his naval force was so completely equipped that he closed the naval arsenal in New Orleans as well as the shops that manufactured naval stores.55 Evidence of the threat the privateers took the authorities to be came that month as well. At dusk one evening in April, as Patterson walked with his wife, his children, and Lieutenant Cunningham, three men came out of the shadows and attacked them. The officers drove them off without injury, but a few days later three more assailants waylaid Cunningham and went at him with dirks, several of which penetrated the lieutenant's coat sleeve without harming him. He drew blood from one of the men with his saber, and that put them to flight. On April 23 Patterson received a threat in the mail, leading him to conclude that in their desperation "the whole connection will I have little doubt put in operation every expedient to get rid of naval force from this station, for reasons too obvious to require naming."56 "Vexations similar to those you were troubled with when in command here, are in operation against me & my officers, by our Barataria friends," Patterson advised Captain David Porter.

  Pierre Laffite would have had nothing to do with these attacks. The brothers never used violence to achieve their ends. Besides, Pierre pursued a more profitable game. When he recovered the Presidente, he promised Herrera that she would be at the disposal of the Mexican junta, never mentioning the sham sale to Parent.57 By February 1816, now called the Dos Hermanos, she carried a cargo of guns, brick, lime for mortar, and other necessary materials to Matagorda for construction of the anticipated port there. She then sailed down the coast to reconnoiter Boquilla de Piedras for Sedella,58 and was back by March 1, after which Pierre agreed to carry a cargo of munitions to Boquilla de Piedras for Duncan and West, who had already been paid by Herrera. 59 However, Laffite told Morphy and Sedella his plans, and advised that if an armed Spanish vessel should intercept him, his captain would of course turn over the weapons and surrender his ship. Morphy made it clear that Spain could not condone the vessel's mission, and would deny the arms to the rebels. The "associates" would have been paid for the arms, and Laffite would have his share either from their sale or else from advance payment for their freighting. Everyone would win except the insurgents. In conformity to their arrangement, Pierre gave the Spaniards information that would enable them to capture his vessel in such a way that he would be above suspicion, but with the expectation that if the Spanish warship seized the Dos Hermanos in addition to the cargo, she would be returned to him. In sending word to Apodaca, Sedella gladly suggested that "our recommended one is worthy of having granted to him what he has asked." Laffite made it clear that his ultimate goal was to disassociate himself forever from the insurgents.

  The Dos Hermanos cast off with her cargo on April 8, Fougard replaced by the Italian Laurent Maire, known also as Lorenzo Mairo or Lawrence Morgan.60 However, the Spanish warships did not arrive in time to intercept her, and Maire landed his cargo at Boquilla de Piedras as instructed. From the rump authority there he obtained for the Dos Hermanos a commission as a privateer under the name the Victoria, in honor of Guadalupe Victoria, who replaced Morelos but would spend the next several years wandering the countryside with little army and no constituency. The Victoria then set off after prizes, taking two before a Spanish vessel caught up with her and began a hard chase that left the Victoria severely damaged when she escaped.61 By April 22 Maire had limped into Cat Island, where he unloaded his prize goods, possibly the slaves that Thomas Copping so enthusiastically went to Donaldsonville to buy.62 After opening her sea cocks to scuttle her, thirty crewmen boarded four pirogues and rowed east along the coast. The next day at the mouth of the Lafourche, the authorities found them with no provisions but some cheese. They were carrying two cases of arms that a customs inspector seized. 63 It appeared that Maire, knowing th
at neither the "associates" nor his Spanish masters could confirm how many arms were delivered at Boquilla de Piedras for the insurgents, had held back a part of the cargo, which Laffite could sell anew to Herrera. When Maire returned to New Orleans in June, he and Laffite met with Sedella and cunningly explained to him that taking the Spanish prizes was the only way to preserve the Dos Hermanos' cover and "keep up appearances." Besides, it was all in service of the greater goal of destroying the insurgency.64

  Meanwhile the revenue people improved their surveillance of the smuggling routes up the Lafourche and elsewhere. Thomas Copping of New Orleans foolishly boasted to inspector Rollins that great bargains in illicit slaves were to be had upriver. "He seemed to think that it was a very smart business to get them all in without being detected or lossing a single nigro," Rollins told Duplessis. "He expressed himself very much in favor of such an active business as smuggling Negroes without being detected in it." In fact, the authorities were soon onto Copping for smuggling a variety of contraband goods.65

  Customs officials also monitored news of legitimate merchantmen who stopped at Galveston before coming to the Balize, perhaps taking on illicit goods to smuggle in with their regular cargo. The inspector at the Balize filed reports of every ship that passed his inspection before going on to New Orleans, in case another more thorough search should be made.66 If a regularly commissioned Mexican privateer such as the Little Napoleon had made a stop at Galveston, the inspectors tried to track its movements and watch for any chicanery.67 A fair number of Mexican and Venezuelan privateers entered the Mississippi in the last half of the year, but not many directly from Galveston until December, when three came into the river within five days. 68 In general, privateering activity around Galveston seemed to heat up at the end of the year, and finally Duplessis and the rest discovered why. The filibusters on the Texas coast island were handing out their own commissions. It was Cartagena all over again, with even less legitimacy.

  It would have taken Pierre several hours to explain to Jean all that had happened during his absence from the murky world of the revolutionaries, filibusters, and Spanish agents. By February Perry and his small command at Bolivar Point were being closely watched by Spaniards in Texas, who had been anticipating such an event for months. These observers provided accurate intelligence on Perry's numbers and movements, and erred only in reporting that the fleet that transported his men had been commanded by the Laffites.69 By March, tired of waiting for more men and supplies that never came, Perry gave up and returned with his command to Louisiana.70 Humbert, whom Onís described as "the chief of a band of robbers armed and equipped in the province of Louisiana," had returned to New Orleans in December, and was once more at loose ends in the city taverns, drinking, boasting, and sulking.71

  Meanwhile the "associates" flirted with funding an expedition to seize Pensacola. The year before they had the idea that they could arm their Texan and Mexican ventures by taking the twenty thousand muskets reported to be in the Spanish armory at the colonial capital, and obtain funding by taking Florida and selling it to the United States. It was a harebrained scheme from the outset, soon abandoned. Then in late February came word of the fall of Cartagena, and the Firebrand returned from Boquilla de Piedras on February 20 with no money for Toledo, only promises and the news that affairs in Mexico were not going well for the insurgents.72

  Toledo had been trying to buy the General Bolivar from the navy in order to outfit her as a Mexican privateer. When the Fire- brand failed to bring back the money needed to complete the purchase, however, Patterson quickly cancelled the deal and sold the vessel to Abner Duncan, who would transform her into the General Jackson, though many continued to use the ship's previous name. Just as damaging from the insurgents' and "associates'" point of view was Patterson's refusal to lend the Firebrand for more courier voyages to Mexico.

  The combined effect was a body blow to the revolutionaries' leaders in New Orleans.73 The scattered return of Perry's disillusioned men from Bolivar Point punctuated another season of dashed hopes, and the flood of disasters continued. Late in March came news that the Petit Milan had gone to the bottom in a storm, carrying arms en route to Boquilla de Piedras, and a month later came the sinking of the Dos Hermanos and the seizure of the muskets it carried.74 It is no wonder that Toledo lost all heart with revolutionaries and filibusters. Late in June he approached Sedella and followed Picornell in seeking pardon from Spain for a renunciation of his former associates. Soon he was telling Sedella everything he knew about the plans and movements of his former comrades and actively sharing information with Picornell—perhaps learning to his amazement that the Laffites had been spying on him for months.

  Meanwhile Pierre Laffite, whom Sedella habitually referred to as "the recommended one," provided plenty of information himself.75 Indeed, Sedella felt moved to commend Laffite's loyalty and usefulness. The spy, he wrote to Apodaca, was "being always attentive to anything that can contribute to inform us of our enemies' strategies and plans." He reported that Pierre said the General Bolivar, not yet renamed by Duncan, would soon be leaving for Boquilla de Piedras or Nautla with another cargo of equipment and munitions, and Pierre expected Patterson to detach the Firebrand again as an escort. The revolutionaries were still short of money, Pierre added. They would move when they got it, but it was slow in coming.76

  But then Pierre revealed the two letters from Gual to Herrera and Toledo that Jean had turned over to him. They laid out the plans to send a fleet of twenty-six privateers from San Domingue to Tampico, an expedition that Pierre said Spain could stop if she posted warships off Cuba to intercept. Pierre gave details of the ships and their rendezvous, but went on to even bigger news. Quakers in Philadelphia had hatched a plan to incite a slave rebellion, backed by Bolivar, in all of the Spanish American colonies simultaneously, and had asked Jean to take a leading role. Maire also reported that he expected to see Cuba in full-blown insurrection shortly, the free black population taking part in a repeat of the San Domingue and Haiti nightmare. Laffite had a list of the agents in charge of igniting the sparks. Again it was necessary for Havana to send a fully empowered agent to New Orleans to assist the Laffites in defeating this diabolical design. The brothers did not want to deal with Onís, whose staff they believed leaked information. Sedella endorsed the request for a special agent.77 In Havana, Apodaca, now viceroy of New Spain, discussed the matter with his advisory council, but they were less credulous than the enthusiastic priest, and awaited more convincing news before taking action. Still, they prepared to send the special agent as Laffite asked.78

  That the repeated setbacks put the filibusters in low spirits cannot be denied. If later legend is to be believed, tensions came to a head around this time at a celebration of a French holiday at Jean Turpin's newly acquired New Orleans Theater and Marine Hotel.79 The bombastic Humbert celebrated along with several of his Baratarian colleagues, ate heartily, drank heavily, and listened to many a tribute to him as the most distinguished Frenchman among them. Reflecting on what he had been and to what he was reduced now, he became maudlin. Rising, he declared that he should not be sitting in indolence among outlaws. His place was in the field. The unintended insult outraged some of the Baratarians present, and it was later recalled that Pierre Laffite led the inebriated old hero away before trouble could start. 80

  Within three weeks of Toledo's defection, a new would-be leader appeared. Aury had been at Aux Cayes and then Jamaica and Port-au-Prince since his escape from Cartagena, and by March 15 had a flotilla of six vessels, four of them armed corsairs.81 The French commodore was about twenty-nine now, and had been privateering since 1803, after serving in the French navy. He was a lone wolf, however, unable to subordinate himself to anyone for long.82 He refused to support Bolivar as sole leader of the insurgency, and thus fell out with Bolivar and others, who were even less friendly when he demanded $25,000 for his expenses in evacuating Cartagena. In the end he got the ship the Constitucion instead, but he would never enjoy Boliv
ar's favor again. Meanwhile, seeing their plans foundering, Herrera persuaded Sauvinet to send his schooner the Morelos to Haiti with Joseph Savary, a Haitian mulatto, carrying a dozen privateer commissions from Mexico and a new blue and white checkered flag for Aury to sail under if he accepted the invitation to take over the maritime part of their Texas campaign. The proposition came at a perfect time for Aury.83 Sailing from Port-au-Prince early in June, he intended to make either Matagorda or Galveston his base. Along the way he took several prizes, but he was now essentially a pirate since he took them under improper Mexican commissions and the flag of the defunct Cartagenan republic. By July 17 he was off the mouth of the Mississippi, waiting for Herrera to reply to a message telling of his plans and asking for several letters of marque from the Mexican junta.84 Herrera tried to persuade Aury to establish himself at Barataria, where Herrera could more easily reach him and from which Aury could transport a new army, but the young privateer was too anxious and independent. He sailed on, first to Matagorda, and then to Galveston, which he concluded offered a safer anchorage. Unfortunately, it also had a shallower bar at the entrance to the bay, and on August 10 the impetuous Aury ran his fleet aground, losing most of his prize ships and the cargo that he had announced would be sold at the mart he intended to establish. 85

  Apparently Pierre Laffite planned to work with Aury, for either plunder or intelligence, and probably both. After the loss of the Dos Hermanos, he bought another ship and named her the Victoria in order to make the commission given to Maire appear legitimate. He engaged Gambi to command in June, but they soon had a falling-out.86 On July 2 Gambi borrowed $250 from Maire, and Maire endorsed the note to Pierre. When the note came due Gambi refused to pay, leading to a court case that virtually ended the already cool relations between Gambi and the Laffites.87 By the end of the month, under either Gambi or Maire, the Victoria set sail along with as many as nine other vessels that sporadically left New Orleans for the Gulf to take prizes and cooperate with Aury. Pierre dutifully informed Sedella, and let it be known that another five ships were preparing for the same business.88 Meanwhile Toledo seemed to have found financing when he told Herrera he had arranged for a line of credit of 20 million pesos from the republican junta in Mexico. Unfortunately, when Herrera tried to access the credit on July 1, three days after Toledo's defection, the credit line proved worthless.89 On August 4 some money finally arrived, modest though the amount was. On his way to Matagorda Aury had landed one of his vessels, the Belona, at Barataria, and he now sent an agent to New Orleans to meet with the "associates" and to contribute $7,000 to their projects, a sign of good faith but too little to be more than a token.90