That month Pierre Laffite began raising money in New Orleans and making arrangements to relocate the brothers, even while trying to work a last-minute deal with Spain. As he wrote his proposal for a new scheme to betray Long on December 11, Pierre was selling two slaves to raise about $1,600.3 Sometime late in December or early in January 1820, Jean, too, came to New Orleans. It was only the second time in the previous three years that neither brother was at Galveston to keep charge, a tacit admission that the island establishment was all but a dead issue to them. People in New Orleans saw both brothers on the streets as they set about their business. Pierre stood erect, his hat pulled over one eye to shut out the sun, and the eye partially closed, a vestige of the stroke of years before. 4 He did much of his business at Maspero's Exchange Commercial Coffee House, which visitors that month found to provide excellent dining.5
By this time, however, few seemed to believe Pierre's habitual rants against the Spanish or his protests that the brothers were not pirates. The leaks about the brothers' Spanish spying compromised them too widely. The debts they ran up cost them too much credibility. In the city the Laffites no longer enjoyed the goodwill of any but their fellow smugglers. "They live obscurely and without acquaintance among the men of position," observed Manuel Garcia, soon to replace Fatio. They had made a lot of money over the years, but they had wasted a great deal of it, and much of the rest went to their attorneys Grymes and Livingston. Word had gotten around that they were almost broke. No one believed that they were repentant or reformed. "Meanwhile they make use of one thing and another," said Garcia, "and so they go, biding their time until proper and suitable occasion may present itself, so that, without consideration for others concerned or keeping faith with them, they may seize upon whatever suits them and advances their interests."6
The brothers put out feelers about finding a new—and most unlikely—patron, the United States. On January 3, 1820, Pierre sent a letter to Patterson's headquarters, a communication typical of the Laffites' approaches to potential masters—hyperbolic, boastful, self-righteous, and dissembling. "Too long since the names of the Lafittes have been the object of general execration, as well here as abroad," he began. They had been attacked in the press, and unjustly accused by association with "the criminal undertakings of a gang of Pirates of all countries." Just to make certain Patterson knew how the brothers felt about their own associates, Pierre condemned those corsairs, "the audacity of which encreases by impunity, and who have lately committed depredations and atrocities of all kind on the Sea coast, and even within the jurisdiction of this State." He could prove that those criminals were never hired, protected, or paid by the Laffites, he said, and reminded Patterson that the hanging of Brown should be ample evidence of their own intolerance toward pirates.
In their old gambit, the Laffites offered to make a bargain by doing something they were going to do anyhow:
To shew to the whole world that I never contributed to the violation of the sacred rights of nations, or would offer resistance or offense to the Government of the United States; and in the view of restoring all confidence to the foreign trade directing itself towards this place; and to destroy all fears which the Establishment of Galveztown might occasion; I now offer myself to you, Sir, willingly, and at my own risk and expense, to Clear Galveztown, and disband all those which are to be found there; taking the engagement for myself and my Brother, that it shall never serve as a place of Rendez-vous for any undertakings with our consent, or under our authorization.
All Pierre and Jean asked was a permit of safe conduct so that they could remove their vessels and their people and reestablish themselves unmolested somewhere outside American jurisdiction. The Laffites were presenting their evacuation as a patriotic act and a repudiation of their own trade, while also buying themselves a little time.
Pierre asked to meet personally with Patterson to discuss his offer, though the commodore maintained his distance and restricted their contact to written communications.7 Perhaps he saw that Pierre promised less than met the eye, since Pierre did not actually say the Laffites would leave, but only that they would prevent any further privateering under their authorization.
Pierre's offer was a welcome one, however, and timely. Patterson's squadron was still weak and inadequately supplied and the Laffite offer seemed a long step in accomplishing his duty to suppress piracy and privateers violating the neutrality laws. He took Laffite's letter to Judge Hall, collector Chew, and Governor Jacques Villere to hear their views. Patterson was not fooled by Pierre's protestations of lofty motivations, but Hall and the others agreed that Patterson should accept the Laffite offer to give up Galveston, and that safe conduct was a small price to pay in return for the opportunity to disrupt the illicit slave trade and remove "men of infamous character" from their environs. 8 Certainly it would be less costly than evicting them at gunpoint, and any move to use force at Galveston risked compromising the still pending treaty ratification in Madrid.
Patterson spent three weeks making certain that he would have the strength at hand to compel the Laffites to leave if it came to that. Finally on January 24, Patterson sent a response to Pierre. Whenever Pierre or Jean was ready to return to Galveston, Patterson would send along a letter of safe conduct that would be respected by his vessels and the United States Navy. Nevertheless, Patterson informed Pierre that he would be sending one of his warships before long to make certain of the "faithful and prompt fulfilling of your proposals."9 He was not going to trust the Laffites without keeping an eye on them.
Patterson was still holding the safe conduct pass when his father-in-law George Pollock, a prominent merchant and officer of the New Orleans branch of the Bank of the United States who had close contacts with the Spaniards in New Orleans, told him that he had been approached by Pierre Laffite. Pierre wanted to meet with the commodore, but if that was not possible, he had some documents he thought might interest Patterson. Pierre sent a packet of papers to Pollock to be shared with his son-in-law. They dealt with something that the Laffites thought might help them with the United States, almost certainly Pierre's December 11 proposal to Cagigal for a Spanish armed expedition to seize Galveston and Long's men. If Cagigal went for it, then Spain would be attacking a position that as of January 1820 still lay within the unsettled territorial claim of the United States. Thus the Laffites could turn Spain's failure to ratify the recent treaty to their advantage.
Patterson saw enough in the documents that he sent Pollock on January 30 to ask Pierre to hand over a complete dossier of the documents he had in the matter in order that Patterson might inform Washington. Pierre replied cagily that he had already destroyed the rest of the documents because "I did not attach any importance to this affair other than what I told you." However, as soon as he returned to Galveston and surveyed the situation—and heard more from Fatio and Apodaca—he would return to New Orleans and inform Patterson of all the particulars in the matter, which of course he already knew.
Informed that Pierre anticipated leaving for Galveston early in February "to fill my pocket," as he put it, Patterson sent the safe conduct on the third, granting permission to "John Laffite and others now occupants of the post and fort of Galveston" to leave with their vessels and goods and any other belongings, without interference or molestation, and to go where they chose so long as it was outside the jurisdiction of the United States. As long as they committed no acts of violence, they were to be allowed to go their way. Patterson made it clear that Pierre and Jean had promised that "the residences, buildings &c. there erected, shall be razed to the ground, that every means shall be removed from thence which has hitherto rendered it the retreat and security of Aury and others who have from thence preyed upon the commerce of the Gulf of Mexico." Pierre got the note the same day he told Patterson that he had no more documents to reveal to him in the other matter, and replied to the commodore with typically obsequious thanks, saying that he felt so anxious to prove his gratitude that he wished someone could witness how
grateful he felt.10
The hint was that Pierre's gratitude would be expressed in information that Patterson might find useful, but Patterson had already lost interest. There was little the Laffites could tell him of Long that he did not know, and as for the Spaniards threatening to take Galveston, he knew as well as anyone how weak Spain's fleet in the Gulf was at the moment. Indeed, he decided that Pierre's information was of so little consequence that he did not mention it to Washington. The Laffites were so compromised as double agents by now that no one could trust them, and their reputation as merchants in old and useless intelligence would have made the commodore even more skeptical. He just wanted them gone from his coast. Deceptive to the end, sometime during the course of the communications, Pierre gave Patterson to understand that he and Jean had decided to go to Venezuela "where they intend selling their vessels and abandoning the nefarious life they have led for so many years."11 As if to punctuate the close of the Laffites' brief career as spies, the day that Pierre got his safe conduct, Felipe Fatio lay dying in New Orleans. He passed away the next day, making way for Garcia to substitute his utter disdain for the Laffites for Fatio's sympathy.
Despite what he told Patterson, Pierre did not leave New Orleans, but remained while Jean returned to Galveston, and for Jean it was a final parting. Whatever the nature of his relationship with Catherine Villard and their four-year-old son Jean Pierre, it ended now, for he would never set foot in New Orleans again. Once on the island, he honored the brothers' pledge. He burned the frame house and most of the other structures in the community, leaving standing only enough to provide shelter to the men before they left. What defensive earthworks stood to command the pass into the bay he had dismantled. The Laffites' sailors set to work preparing to evacuate aboard a small squadron of the brig the New Enterprise, now renamed the General Victoria, and two small schooners, the Minerva and the Blanque, the latter no doubt named for Jean's sometime associate. 12 In the process, Jean found that he needed a number of items from New Orleans, so on February 19 he sent the small schooner the Pegasus, commanded by the ubiquitous William Mitchell, with a list. It included cooking ware, anchors, and the like, but also materials, such as cannon cleaning tools and grappling hooks, that were clearly designed for fitting out a vessel for privateering. The Laffites were close to violating their pledge to Patterson. As soon as the Pegasus returned with the merchandise and with Pierre, Jean intended to leave Galveston and put to sea.13
On her way up the Mississippi to New Orleans, the Pegasus may have passed the brig the Enterprise coming from the Balize on a mission from Patterson. Lieutenant Lawrence Kearny had commanded the Enterprise since 1815. He had left New York late in December 1819, but only after demanding precise instructions on how he was to determine who were pirates and who were not.14 When Kearny arrived at the New Orleans station in February, Jean had recently left for Galveston, and Patterson almost immediately ordered the Enterprise to proceed to the island to see if the Laffites and their associates were carrying out their promise.15 On February 27 Jean Laffite saw the Enterprise bearing down on the island.
Kearny anchored outside the bar and rowed over to the General Victoria to meet Laffite, who showed his usual hospitality and unctuous manners, and over refreshments detailed his preparations. He then took Kearny ashore and showed him the work done thus far. All about lay the signs of dismantling, with piles of nautical supplies and equipment strewn on the sand for loading.16 Now, he said, he awaited only the return of the Pegasus and the right weather to take his squadron out the pass and over the bar and "cruise no more the Bay of Mexico." He told Kearny that before he left he would set fire to the remaining houses on the island, as well as burning a small felucca being used as a lighter to transfer supplies to the brig. Their discussion left Kearny convinced that the Laffites were acting in good faith. 17 Laffite then gave Kearny and his officers a dinner aboard his brig, and regaled them with his well-worn cover story of hatred for Spain and Spaniards. The Americans also met, however briefly, the mulatto woman often seen with Laffite on Galveston.
Pierre's continued presence in the city was believed by some to have more than a little to do with the Le Brave crewmen awaiting their sentences. On February 16 Governor Villere received an anonymous warning that elements then in town intended to set fires throughout the city in order to distract authorities while friends of Desfarges and the rest robbed banks and freed the pirates from their prison. Acknowledging that the warning might be a hoax, the governor doubled the civil patrols at night just the same.18 The additional guards at the jail prevented any effort to break out the condemned, but soon enough a mysterious fire erupted, the first of a series, mostly at private homes, over the next several weeks. As the date set for the execution of the pirates grew closer, the number of fires increased, and with it the fear and outrage in the city. Every day, complained one editor with exaggeration indicative of the fear, one could see in the city streets "wretches covered with the blood of the unfortunate whom they have murdered at Barataria or Galveston and on the ocean." Some feared that if the rabble did not succeed in freeing their friends, they would destroy the city.19 This sentiment was one good reason for Jean not to return, and for Pierre to maintain a low profile.20
Still, Pierre did not completely evade the authorities' gaze. The Pegasus, bearing Jean's list of necessities, reached New Orleans in a few days, and quickly chandler Guillaume Malus provided the items requested.21 Being a fast sailor, in fact, the Pegasus was back at Galveston by the beginning of March with Pierre aboard. Once more Mitchell took her back to New Orleans, arriving March 7, this time with several of the brothers' sailors, among them Antonin Ballarda and the Canadian George Bankhead Schumph. 22 The port inspector had given her the customary inspection at English Turn on March 4 and found nothing suspicious about her other than several Spanish swords that the passengers claimed as their own. He did learn that "one Lafitte" was among the passengers, which should have raised an eyebrow.23 The ship showed no signs of preparations to fit her out for unlawful service. Her rigging and sails seemed in poor condition, and in the opinion of the officer she was good for little but coastal freighting, better for carrying firewood than mounting guns. Yet anyone who knew that Mitchell commanded and that Pierre Laffite was aboard had cause to suspect that all was not as it seemed. And one man recalled that the Pegasus had once been a United States gunboat, with a flat bottom for shallow water, and a deck better calculated to carry artillery than those of ordinary schooners of her size.24
Within days of the Pegasus tying up at the wharf, a man named Nickerson and another named John Wood began to approach sailors in the city asking if they would like to "go a privateering." They were told to meet at Harvey Norton's Jackson Inn on Tchopitoulas Street in the lower Faubourg St. Mary, a spot very close to the river on the outskirts of the city. There on March 15 some 102 men signed on, at least one of them a sailor serving on a United States revenue cutter. They learned that their captain was to be the same Ballarda who came with Pierre, and that they were to rendezvous at Galveston to crew Laffite's twenty-gun brig for a four-month cruise under the defunct red, white, and blue "patriot" flag of Humbert and the Mexican insurgency. Nickerson and a "tall portly & stout man" who was probably Pierre Laffite did not tell them what country's ships they were to capture, but gave each man a $30 enlistment bounty and promised him a share of the prize proceeds amounting to $1,000 before the cruise was done. 25
Other men gathered by night at Pierre's lodgings on Bourbon, unaware that Garcia knew they were there and suspected they were being recruited to reinforce Long for an attack on Texas.26 On the morning of March 17 the men began to appear at the wharf beside the Pegasus. Some went aboard while others stood about onshore, an assorted group including Americans, Spaniards, and Frenchmen. There they learned that Captain Ballarda would not sail with them but would follow on another vessel. When they boarded they soon saw the evidence of stealthy preparations for privateering.
A revenue inspector boarded her
and found the deserter from the revenue cutter, along with others repeating a cover story about being passengers for St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The large number of new water casks, far too many for a boat of the Pegasus's size on such a voyage, raised his suspicion. On further inspection he found a cargo manifest listing grappling hooks, bilge pumps too large for the Pegasus, more musket and cannon tools, and three hundred shot "for Great Guns." The men told him that the cannonballs were for ballast, but he could see well enough that they were not stored in the ship's bottom as they should be for that purpose but instead stuffed in cabin lockers, in the wings under the deck beams, on top of the water and provision casks, and elsewhere.
Not surprisingly, the United States Marshal John Nicholson seized the Pegasus on March 18 and John Dick presented a libel against her in Judge Hall's court charging her with illegally attempting to fit out for privateering against Spain. Though Pierre engaged Grymes right away to represent Mitchell's claim for her return, the court would not release her for three months.27 Meanwhile, on March 29, a consular official showed Pierre a letter from Cagigal that made it all too clear that Spain was cutting the Laffites loose. In response Pierre confirmed that he and Jean were abandoning Galveston and suggested that the brothers would move wherever Cagigal wanted them to go, a transparent appeal for Spain to allow them to make a base in her colonial dominion. 28 Indeed, Garcia even knew that Pierre had proposed the move to Patterson, though perhaps not that the old schemer had tried to make some capital of his offer by suggesting that the Laffites might provide information to the United States. "I do not know what he will do," Garcia said of Pierre on April 9, "but I do know that Laffite and his brother have played their game well with the Spanish government."29
The Pirates Laffite Page 44