The Pirates Laffite

by William C. Davis

  The junta spoke in French among themselves, and questioned Sandoval. Finally they told him he would have to stay the night on the brig, for the hurricane had destroyed any accommodations ashore. Even confined as he was, however, Sandoval could tell the poor condition of affairs. There were now only about 150 on the island. They had little good water and no other vessels, and their only serviceable artillery appeared to be two pivot guns, their powder soaked and useless.58

  While Sandoval observed what he could, Rigaud and the others pondered their response, but Laffite distanced himself from the proceeding. The demand spoke only of the settlers, and he did not want to confuse his establishment with them more than it was already. Rigaud finally prepared a statement reiterating the settlers' peaceful intent to make a colony on the Trinity for Napoleonic exiles. They had arms, but only for hunting and protection. The land they tried to settle was abandoned and unused, but when they learned of the Spaniards' approach, they gave it up and retreated to the island. They would settle here on Galveston but found that "this island does not promise anything other than asylums and difficulties to those that would wish to possess it and cultivate it." Rigaud protested that they were only there now while waiting for Lallemand to make arrangements to settle them elsewhere. Castañedas ultimatum had shattered their remaining peace of mind, but they could do nothing until they heard from Lallemand. Rigaud asked to be allowed to remain a little longer but refused to hand over their arms. The settlers had never used them against the Spaniards, and needed them for protection.59

  The next morning an officer handed Sandoval a packet containing the Galveston junta's response and took him back to his canoe. Within a few days Sandoval reached Castañedas camp, but when the captain read Rigaud's response, he found it unsatisfactory and sent a messenger back to demand that a high-ranking member of the junta come to negotiate with him. "Not only you and your subjects are included in my parley," he wrote to Rigaud, "but the head of the privateer [s], Monsieur Lafitte, of which person and his operations I ought to have knowledge for the concession or denial that his circumstances occasion." Castañeda demanded a reply within three days or he would take steps "that may be fatal to you."60 To cover himself, Castañeda had already sent a letter eastward to "The First Authority Depending on the Congress of the United States," to inform American authorities of his intentions at Galveston. Spain had the right to evict filibusters seeking to invade Spanish provinces. He wanted the United States to understand that any action he took would not be a hostile act against Americans, and he promised not to cross the border into the Neutral Zone.61

  Whatever they thought of Castañedas ultimatum, neither Rigaud nor Laffite sent a reply. Without the boats to make an assault on Galveston Island, he could do little more than destroy the remaining structures at Champ d Asile and march back to his base.62 He knew there was no need for the Spaniards to attack, however. Lallemand's people had reached their last extremity. By late October Lallemand's forty days were up and the promised supplies did not appear. Deserters from the island began to seek sanctuary at Spanish camps, often two at a time, and as many as six on one occasion.63 Three officers handed themselves over to Castañeda before he was too far distant, and happily reported to him the disarray on the island.64

  One settler, disgusted with the confusion and the hunger, simply walked over to the privateer settlement and signed on to serve aboard a corsair. Soon others would do the same. 65 Laffite continued to provide food sufficient to sustain life, but not to maintain morale. Finally, in November Lallemand sent word that Congress had made another land grant in Alabama and the settlers were to return to New Orleans at once. This was easier to say than to do, for they had no transportation. Laffite had a small prize sloop, the St. Antonio de Campeche, but it was so small that only the sick could be embarked. She left on October 24 with Humbert in command and fearing that another awful month would pass on the island before the sloop returned, about sixty of Lallemand's people opted to walk. Despite the heavy debt Lallemand owed him for all the supplies advanced, Laffite ferried them to the mainland and capitalized on his good relations with the Coushatta to trade for horses and guides to get the settlers to Nacogdoches without attracting the attention of Spanish authorities.66

  In a couple of weeks the sick refugees reached New Orleans, only to find yellow fever. Most became victims. Those who waited on Galveston for the boat to come back arrived a month later and some of them also died, but the rest went on to Alabama to become genuine tillers of the soil.67 Lallemand became embroiled in legal and financial difficulties over $1,200 he owed Lameson for chartering the Golden Age to bring the colony a load of food, a cannon or two, and ammunition. On December 17, 1818, Lallemand appeared before the federal court to state his intention to become an American citizen and take the oath required. His dreams of conquest were over.68 No doubt too embarrassed to face his former followers, he stayed in Louisiana to become a farmer not far from New Orleans.69

  By the end of November only seven of Lallemand's men remained on Galveston, but it became evident that the damage from the hurricane, short rations, and uncertainty over the future in the face of what was known of the Graham visit and Castaneda's ultimatum had done their work on Laffite's men, too Their numbers were reduced, and they lived once more in brush and sailcloth huts. Laffite's slave mistress remained with him, but in ill health. 70 Laffite stayed aboard the brig with three or four trusted lieutenants to guard merchandise rumored to be worth $200,000—if it could be gotten to market. Sometime around the end of the year a cabal of thirty to forty of the privateers decided to take it for themselves, even if they had to slit Laffite's throat to do so. Jean, who did not customarily carry sidearms, got word of the plot and prepared to defend himself, engaging the seven remaining Frenchmen from Lallemand's band to add to his defense. They must have been sufficient, for though Laffite believed they all ran a risk of assassination that winter, no attempts were made. When the seven finally left on March 3, 1819, he could not pay them, but handed over merchandise that they could smuggle into Louisiana.71 The Laffites exited the Champ d'Asile episode no better off than the settlers.

  Yet they did not give up hope of capitalizing on their skills at espionage. They had failed with Aury and Mina and Lallemand, and by now the "associates" were all but out of the filibustering business. Nevertheless, Graham's good offices with DeForest opened another two-way door. The game never changed, only the players. And so the brothers boldly tried to shift the game to Washington. Leaving Jean behind to press their futile claims for compensation before a sympathetic but hamstrung Fatio, and with Graham's introduction to DeForest in hand, Pierre took ship for the East and arrived by the middle of November.72

  Pierre Laffite's first and only visit to Washington put him there during what residents would recall as "the period of the best society in Washington." Congress abounded with "gentlemen of high character and high breeding." Already Willard's Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue was a major hostelry, though Pierre stayed at Washington Hall not far away. If the city's cooks were not outstanding, still the proximity to the Chesapeake left no fine ingredients to be desired. 73 But Pierre was in town on business, and would not remain for months as had his brother. He sent their old associate Vicente Garros to Philadelphia to meet DeForest with Graham's recommendation and the Laffites' own entreaty in hand. Garros met with DeForest on November 16. DeForest was a United States citizen who had applied in May 1818 to be recognized as consul general representing the Buenos Aires junta. Secretary of State Adams had responded by citing "the excesses and outrages committed by Privateers having commissions from Buenos Ayres, but fitted out, armed and manned in the ports of the United States." He did not hesitate to attribute these unlawful privateers to commissions DeForest was giving out in Philadelphia. Indeed, a recognized agent from Buenos Aires admitted to Adams that not one of the corsairs known to be sailing under his junta's commissions was captained or crewed by natives. Thereafter Adams had no further communication with DeForest, so when G
arros met with him, he encountered a man who had no official standing at all.74

  During the conference Garros listed the men whom the brothers would appoint to create an admiralty court, customs administration, and civil and military authorities should they have to leave Galveston and form a new establishment. DeForest was curious to know what location the Laffites might choose for a new base, but Garros evaded a direct answer. Garros gave away nothing by observing, however, that one good spot would be someplace on the coast opposite the Isla Mugeres, the so-called Island of Women off the northeastern tip of the Yucatán peninsula. Indeed, the island itself would leave the corsairs perched on a virtual promontory thrust into the middle of the Gulf directly in the path of Spanish shipping from Cuba to Vera Cruz. In all the region, it was the land base best situated for speedy raid and return. Garros suggested that if DeForest could persuade President Monroe, who was friendly to Buenos Aires interests, to delay closing Galveston for a year, the Laffites could use the time to establish a new base without unnecessary interruption, benefiting both Buenos Aires and the brothers. DeForest agreed to approach Monroe on the subject. It may only be coincidental that Monroe's message to Congress, delivered two days after this meeting, pointedly omitted any reference to Galveston, but thereafter the pressure on Galveston from Washington relaxed for several months.

  Garros told DeForest that when he left Galveston in September, Jean Laffite had six unarmed vessels to fit out. Pierre could have informed him that probably not more than two or three vessels were seaworthy after the hurricane, but there was no need to understate the Laffites' need for finance. DeForest asked Garros to go with him to Baltimore to meet with the merchant Thomas Tenant, presumably to help outfit the boats, but Garros pled that as he was in charge of Laffite affairs in Philadelphia, he could not leave. DeForest spoke much of his desire to meet Pierre, and seemed to believe that the Laffite presence at Galveston was considerably more formidable than it was after the storm. He expressed, in fact, the expectation that had the Laffites joined with Aury, they could have conquered Puerto Rico or San Domingue. Garros politely did not disabuse him of the delusion, saying only that they might have taken those islands but could not have held on to them, whereas there were other places where the privateers' numbers could be used to greater effect. For the current enterprise, he said, their hopes for success lay with Tenant and the other Baltimore businessmen who still had an interest in funding revolution against Spain. After he finished his business with Tenant at Baltimore, DeForest decided to travel to Washington to talk with Pierre. Garros wrote to Laffite at once, both to tell him the encouraging news and to detail what he had said to DeForest so that Pierre's version of things would agree with his emissary's.75

  At virtually the same time that Garros met with DeForest, Pierre had an audience with Onís in Washington on November 25. The ambassador was still fighting his routine battle to demonstrate American duplicity,76 but he was making a case no one wanted to hear. Thus he could afford to listen to what Laffite had to say. After presenting his statement of over $18,000 in expenses incurred on behalf of Spain, Pierre outlined the brothers' latest plan for Galveston. He confessed that the Spanish fleet might have finally taken possession of the island, in which case Pierre offered to defy the corsairs and transport supplies to the new tenants so that they could start operating against the privateers. Pierre feared no interference from American officials, even should he take arms to fit out privateers for Spain. However, if the Americans had forced Lallemand out by this time—as indeed Lallemand's people were all but gone now—then Pierre offered to evict the Americans, too, which he promised he could do "by my own means and with the help that you give me."

  And the Americans were likely to be a problem, he said. Pierre craftily embellished Jean's discussions with Graham, saying that far from abandoning Galveston, Graham had urged Jean to join forces with Aury and Lallemand to resist any Spanish attempt to take the island. Jean had pretended to go along, and then Graham revealed that the United States wanted to assist the Laffites in taking the Gulf coast all the way to the mouth of the Rio Grande in order to effect a repeat of West Florida. An American naval squadron would make a false show of attacking the Laffite forces and they would surrender it all to the United States. Finally Pierre told Onís that Graham had insisted he could offer "very considerable compensations" from the government in return for their complicity. It was the litany that the brothers had rehearsed before Fatio and Morphy in the past: exaggerating their strength, setting Spain against a real or imaginary antagonist, and offering to make the difference for the Spaniards in spite of "very considerable compensations" from the other side, the perpetual hint that men who could be bought might like to hear a higher offer. 77

  Pierre told Onís it should be easy for the Laffites to gain the confidence of American authorities on the Gulf and pass their plans on to Fatio, reiterating as before that he had "no other aim than that of serving His Catholic Majesty." Whether the Americans or the Spaniards took Galveston, the privateers had to find a new base soon, perhaps on the coast of Spanish Florida if Onís did not give it up. In that event, Pierre offered a new plan for capturing the corsairs then cruising the Gulf, thus stopping piracy at a single blow. The Laffites would hold Galveston and seize all matériel sent there from Buenos Aires for arming corsairs. They would also infiltrate DeForest's circle and pass on information to Fatio and Apodaca. Yet again Pierre wanted to communicate personally with Apodaca, and would do so under the cover of being a merchant selling the supplies and arms seized from Buenos Aires, for which Pierre should be paid in person in Havana, along with the compensation for his information. He added a new demand, one that perhaps reflected a growing realization that time was running out for the Laffites on the Gulf. Spain did not want them there, and neither did the United States, and Pierre knew his secret life as a spy was not so secret. As a result, he told Onís that he wanted a pardon from King Ferdinand for himself and Jean, since there had been no action on his similar request in 1815. He wanted, in fact, to go to Spain, raising once more the untruth that he was Spanish born, and once there he wanted to be provided suitable employment for himself and his brother.78

  He suggested that he remain in Washington to perfect the scheme with Onís and also to meet and ingratiate himself with the Americans in order to learn their plans and report on them.79 Efficiency demanded that Onís designate a special agent who would deal directly with Pierre in Washington as Fatio had in New Orleans. Pierre also suggested that his code name be changed. Too many people connected with Cienfuegos's "Reserved Commission" in New Orleans knew the identity of Number 13, and he asked that Onís devise to circulate the word to "the majority of those who knew this number" that he was in fact "no longer added to any of Your Catholic Majesty's business." 80 Pierre diplomatically refrained from saying to Onís what Jean had confided to Sedella and Fatio, that the brothers did not want to be directly involved with Onís and his legation "because everything that happens at this office is later known by the Ministers of the Association."81

  Onis found Laffite persuasive, and engaged to pass his plans along to Cienfuegos. Reflecting a few days on the matter, however, Onís advised Laffite that he did not need to stay in Washington and that his presence could arouse suspicion. It would be better for him to conduct his other business elsewhere in the East while they awaited a decision from the captain general in Havana.82 Onís sent a dispatch to Cienfuegos days after meeting with Pierre, attesting at the outset that Laffite "seems to act on good faith." Like Sedella and Fatio and others before him, Onís was partly charmed by Pierre's personality and partly victimized by his own wishful thinking. "There is no doubt that they could serve us greatly under these circumstances," he told Cienfuegos. Agreeing with Pierre's concern for security, Onís notified the captain general that hereafter he would refer to Pierre as Number 19.83

  Pierre would remain in the capital long enough for Congress to reconvene in December. He hoped to gain an audience with Speaker of the Hou
se Henry Clay in tandem with DeForest and other representatives of the Buenos Aires and Venezuelan juntas. Clay outspokenly supported the independence movements in Spanish America. He had tried to kill the legislation outlawing arming and outfitting privateers for the insurgencies in American ports, and in the past year had attempted to repeal the neutrality law. Clay, in fact, was making a bid to take control of foreign policy away from the secretary of state, and sensing the possible shift in power, Laffite and the others wanted to talk with him about the United States granting formal recognition to Buenos Aires. They hoped also to present plans for taking over the rest of Spain's North American holdings.

  Sometime in December they probably did get the meeting with Clay, for Pierre afterward gave Onís to understand that Graham, President Monroe, and presumably Clay, remembering his loyalty in the period 1814–1815, wanted to place Laffite in charge of such an enterprise. Of course Laffite protested his devotion to Spain. Stalled in the negotiations with Adams over the Louisiana boundary, Onís could easily believe that the president would be willing to break the stalemate by encouraging filibusters to do the job for him.

  Yet there was another side to the matter. For all their puffery, the Laffites were nearly paper tigers on the Gulf coast by now. The hurricane had badly weakened the remainder of the Laffite concern, and at present Onís was less than two months away from final agreement with Adams on a treaty. Negotiations were stalled, but it was obvious that an end was in sight and that they would set the Louisiana border on the Sabine, making Texas and Galveston unequivocally Spanish. If a meeting did take place with Clay, it produced no further action on his part, and most of the Congress did not share Clay's enthusiasm for the insurrections, or at least not so far as to get the United States overtly involved.