NINE
1. St. Louis, Missouri Gazette & Illinois Advertiser, June 11, 1814.
2. Deposition of Levy Scrivener, July 11, 1814, Ernest Sabourin Papers, Howard Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans. Even in 1827 in New Orleans it was still widely assumed that Pierre was the man in charge at Barataria. Martin, Louisiana, II, p. 362.
3. Testimony of William Hoey, December 5, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Goods Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
4. Deposition of William Godfrey, December 3, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
5. Testimony of William Hoey, December 5, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Goods Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
6. Testimony of James Hoskins, December 5, 1814, Testimony of Daniel McMullin, December 5, 1814, Deposition of John Oliver, December 3, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Goods Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
7. Deposition of Edward Williams, December 3, 1814, Ibid.; Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 436.
8. George W. Morgan endorsement, May 7, 1816, on court order, March 26, 1816, Laffite vs. Sylvestre, Case #829, Parish Court Civil Suit Records, NOPL.
9. Paul Dear Borne and Zenon Quenebert passport, August 21, Etienne Derborne and Pierre Louvier passport, August 22, 1814, New Orleans, Times-Picayune, August 22, 1937. These documents were originally in the United States District Court files.
10. Deposition of Jean Laffite, July 15, 1815, John Gourjon vs. Vincent Gamby, Suit Records, #751, First Judicial District Court, Orleans Parish, NOPL.
11. "Lafitte, 'The Pirate'—Early Times in the Southwest," DeBow's Review, XIX (August 1855), p. 150. The informant for this story was one "Nez Coupe," a man so-called because he had lost a piece of his nose. His actual name was Chighizola. Castellanos, New Orleans as It Was, pp. 40–42, claimed that Gambi had that nickname, but was clearly mistaken as Gambi had been dead for almost forty years when this story was told in 1855.
12. Soto to Apodaca, April 25, 1815, Legajo 1796, AGI-Newberry.
13. Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 436. Bollaert based this information on interviews with former Laffite associates. Though it was twenty years after the fact, and Bollaert's informants were sometimes imaginative, the account fits with what little directly contemporary evidence there is for Laffite's management.
14. Numerous Rigaud family stories about interaction with Laffite survive, including an account of François's daughter Marie winning a gambling prize for Jean by cutting a card for him. They are probably apocryphal or exaggerated, but contemporary records establish that the Rigauds were residents at the time. Ray M. Thompson, The Land of Lafitte the Pirate (New Orleans, 1943), p. 44.
15. Daniel Patterson to William Jones, October 10, 1814, M-147, RG 45; George T. Ross to James Monroe, October 3, 1814, RG 107, NA.
16. This speculation, based on a report cited earlier, gains more credibility when it is considered that Jean Laffite did exactly the same thing with a brig at Galveston in 1818.
17. Testimony of Daniel McMullin, December 5, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Goods Seized at Barataría, Case #0734, NAFW.
18. Ibid.
19. This comes from John Smith Kendall, "The Huntsmen of Black Ivory," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, XXIV (January 1941), p. 15, who offers no authority for the claim.
20. Latour, Memoir, pp. 14–15, 16.
21. Marie Louise Villard to Eugenie Tressanceaux, September 1, 1815, Notary Pierre Pedesclaux, Vol. 71, item 827, NONA.
22. Bollaert, "Lafitte," p. 436.
23. Arrest order, July 8, 1814, United States vs. Pierre Laffite, Case #0573, NAFW.
24. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette and New-Orleans Advertiser, July 12, 1814.
25. Mateo Gonzalez Manrique to Apodaca, September 1814, Legajo 1815, AGI-Newberry.
26. Ibid.
27. Lanusse to Dubourg, December 27, 1813, Letters from Collectors of Customs Relating to Commissions of Privateers, 1812–1815, Entry 388, RG 45, NA.
28. Carl A. Brasseaux and Glenn R. Conrad, eds., The Road to Louisiana: The Saint-Domingue Refugees 1792–1809 (Lafayette, LA, 1992), pp. 221–22.
29. Minutes, July 18, 1814, III, p. 319–22, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
30. Ibid., July 20, 1814, III, pp. 326–27.
31. Ibid., July 27, 1814, III, pp. 338–39.
32. Brasseaux and Conrad, Road to Louisiana, p. 205.
33. Ex Parte Pierre Lafitte, August 6, 1814, Minutes, III, p. 350, August 8, 1814, p. 352, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
34. Opinion of Drs. Lewis Heerman and William Flood with regard to the health of said Lafitte, August 10, 1814, United States vs. Pierre Laffite, Case #0574, NAFW.
35. Ex Parte Pierre Lafitte, August 10, 1814, p. 357, August 11, p. 358, Minutes, III, M-1082, RG 21, NA.
36. Indictment, August 9, 1814, ibid., III, pp. 353–56; Presentment of Lafitte and others, August 19, 1814, Sabourin Papers, Tulane, New Orleans.
37. Babb, French Refugees, p. 300.
38. Nolte, Memoirs, p. 207.
39. Ibid., p. 207.
40. New Orleans, Louisiana Gazette and New-Orleans Advertiser, August 18, 1814. Nolte, Memoirs, p. 207, suggests that Pierre wrote this article, and others have accepted that since, but of course Pierre was in jail at the moment and hardly able to write letters to the press. It bears all the signs of a composition of Jean's—the hyperbole, the taunting wit, and the insolence.
41. This is the conclusion of "Lafitte, 'The Pirate'—Early Times in the Southwest," pp. 150—51, and while no source is indicated, it seems probable that Jean was indeed in the act of making plans and/or preparations for the move as of September 1.
42. Testimony by John Oliver taken in December 1814 stated that Dominique was on Grand Isle when the British arrived on September 3. Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
43. Master's Log of the HMS Sophie, 1809–1814, September 3, 1814, Ships' Logs, 1799–1974, ADM 51/2791, Records of the Admiralty, and Ministry of Defense, Navy Department, National Archives, Kew, London, England.
44. Laffite to Nicholas Lockyer, September 4, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
45. Cross-examination of Edward Williams, December 8, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
46. Master's log of HMS Sophie, September 3, 1814, ADM 51/2791, National Archives, Kew.
47. Manuscript draft of Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–1815, Arsene Latour Papers, HNOC. Here Latour implies that Laffite wanted to escape from Lockyer's pinnace once he recognized that it was English. This draft, in Latour's hand, contains some significant differences from the final published version. The translation of the original French is by Christina Vella.
48. Cross-examination of Edward Williams, December 8, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
49. Manuscript of Historical Memoir, Latour Papers, HNOC.
50. Cross-examination of Edward Williams, December 8, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
51. William D. Robinson, A Cursory View of Spanish America, Particularly the Neighbouring Vice-Royalties of Mexico and New Granada, (Georgetown, DC, 1815), p. 34.
52. James L. Yeo to Viscount Melville, February 19, 1813, Parsons Collection, CAHUT
53. Fernan Nuñez to Castlereagh, July 13, 1813, Foreign Office Records, FO72/149, National Archives, Kew, London.
54. Nuñez to Castlereagh, August 17, 1813, Ibid.
55. Nuñez to Castlereagh, December 27, 1813, FO72/180, National Archives, Kew, London.
56. James Stirling, Memorandum by Captain James Stirling Regarding the Condition of Louisiana, March 17, 1813, HNOC.
57. Hugh Pigot to Alexander Cochrane, June 8, 1814, Admiralty Papers, Letters from Captains, 1/2346, National Archives, Kew, London.
58. John Sugden, "Jean Laf
itte and the British Offer of 1814," Louisiana History, XX (Spring 1979), p. 160.
59. Except where otherwise cited, the basic account of the Laffite-Lockyer encounter that follows is based on Latour, Memoir, pp. 17–21.
60. Edward Nicholls, Proclamation, August 29, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT. Many copies of the documents handed to Laffite exist. The ones in the Parsons Collection appear to be the originals, including this one of the Nicholls Proclamation, and evidence suggests that all of these documents were a part of Cases #0573 and/or #0574, NAFW, at one time. They were at the court as late as 1878–79, where they were examined by author Charles Hayes, who believed they were filed by Jean Laffite himself. Charles Hayes, History of the Island and the City of Galveston (Austin, 1974; reprint of destroyed Cincinnati, 1879 edition), p. 99n. By the early twentieth century, however, they had been stolen from the district court archives in New Orleans along with most of the other documents making up what is now the Parsons Collection. As of 1930, according to Saxon, Lafitte, p. 198, "some years ago these letters turned up in a curio shop in New Orleans." They were purchased by a private collector, presumably Simon J. Shwartz, for they were in his collection when it was auctioned in 1926 and purchased by Parsons (Anderson Galleries Catalog Sale Number 2096, New York, 1926, pp. 77–79). Copies of the documents that Laffite sent to New Orleans for Governor Claiborne are in the Edward Nicholls and William H. Percy Letters, HNOC. In time the Nicholls August 31, 1814, letter to Laffite and the Nicholls August 29 proclamation would appear in Debates and Proceedings of the Congress of the United States, Fifteenth Congress, Second Session, Appendix (Washington, 1855), pp. 1948–50.
61. Edward Nicholls to Laffite, August 31, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT. Again the copy in the Parsons Collection appears to be the original, while the Edward Nicholls and William H. Percy Letters, HNOC, contains Claiborne's copy.
62. William H. Percy to Nicholas Lockyer, August 30, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
63. Percy to Lafitte, September 1, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
64. Manuscript draft of Historical Memoir, Latour Papers, HNOC.
65. Lockyer's reference to Pierre being in jail could have been an embellishment added either by Laffite or Latour, though since Spaniards like Sedella and others were writing letters in July informing their superiors of Pierre's arrest, there was no reason the British could not know of it, especially since Spain was now their ally.
66. In both the published version of Latour's Memoir and the manuscript draft, he claims that Lockyer also offered Laffite $30,000. If there was a cash offer it might only have been verbal and not mentioned in the letters from Nicholls and Percy, but more likely the money was a later embellishment of Laffite's when he told the story to Latour, or even earlier when he was negotiating amnesty in return for aiding General Jackson. Refusing a large sum of money would make his action look all the more self-sacrificing and patriotic. In fact, Nicholls would not have had to pay any such sum, and he had very little available, and certainly not $30,000. He was already severely taxed providing for thousands of starving Indians who agreed to serve him. He did sometimes recommend paying sums to useful individuals, but nothing like $30,000. In 1815, for instance, he suggested giving one Indian leader £300 and a commission as a militia major, with annual half pay of £146. A captain's half pay—the likely offer to Laffite—would have been £95.16.3. The captain's commission Laffite might have been offered would have been in the militia, with a half pay award, or a lump sum (John Sugden to Vogel, January 24, 1977; John Sugden, "Jean Lafitte and the British Offer of 1814," Louisiana History, XX [Spring 1979], p. 164). The only British hint at something substantial being proffered to Laffite comes in a report published in the London Annual Register, L (1814), p. 194, which says that Nicholls "addressed a letter to Mons. La Fete, or Fitte, a Frenchman, the chief of a band of outlaws or pirates ... in which he acquainted La Fete with his arrival, and made him large offers for his assistance." Within a few years the offer became exaggerated by rumor to as much as £75,000, and the British expectation twisted into the Laffites piloting a British fleet to New Orleans (Information derived from Col. S. M. Williams respecting Lafitte, Lamar Papers, TSL).
The case of the invented or exaggerated money offer also raises the question of just how much of the rest of the detail of the episode in Latour—outside the actual letters involved—Laffite may have invented about the episode. Lockyer's own brief account cited above certainly differs with it in several respects.
67. Cross-examination of Edward Williams, December 8, 1814, Patterson and Ross vs. Certain Good Vessels Seized at Barataria, Case #0734, NAFW.
68. Lockyer to Percy, September 11, 1814, Sugden, "British Offer," p. 165.
69. Testimony of John Oliver, December 1814, Ibid.
70. Charleston, Courier, July 1, 1813.
71. Masters' log of HMS Sophie, September 3, 1814, ADM 51/2791, National Archives, Kew; Lockyer to Percy, September 11, 1814, Sugden, "British Offer," p. 165. François-Xavier Martin, The History of Louisiana from the Earliest Period (New Orleans, 1827), II, p. 362, states in a quirky history written a decade after the fact that Laffite "amused his visitors" while the British officers were with him, and encouraged their hopes. Lockyer likely did not regard arrest and threats of execution as "amusement."
72. Lockyer to Percy, September 11, 1814, Sugden, "British Offer," p. 165.
73. Masters' log of HMS Sophie, September 4, 1814, ADM 51/2791, National Archives, Kew.
74. Laffite to Nicholas Lockyer, September 4, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT. While written in French, this is not the original, which would have been kept by Lockyer and has not been found in British archives if it survives. Nor is this copy signed by Laffite, for the signature is misspelled "Lafitte," so it is a secretarial copy perhaps written for Laffite and signed by the scribe, and appears to be in the same hand as other documents written for Laffite at this time also in the Parsons Collection. It is numbered No. 6, so it is perhaps the copy sent to Blanque and handed to Claiborne. This document was also originally in the United States District Court files for Case #0573 or 0574.
75. Morphy to Apodaca, November 3, 11, 1814, Legajo 1836, AGI-Newberry.
76. Lachance, "Repercussions of the Haitian revolution in Louisiana," Geggus, Haitian Revolution, p. 223.
77. Stanley Faye, Privateers of the Gulf (Hemphill, TX, 2001), p. 54, quoting Louis de Clouet, December 7, 1814. Blanque was admitted to practice before the U.S. court January 17, 1814 (Minutes, III, p. 266, M-1082, RG 21).
78. Laffite to Jean Blanque, September 4, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT. This is the original signed by Laffite, and also came originally from the United States District Court files.
79. In his September 10, 1814, letter to Blanque, written immediately on his arrival at Grand Isle, Pierre stated: "I have not yet been honoured with an answer from you. The moments are precious; pray send me an answer that may serve to direct my measures in the circumstances in which I find myself" (Parsons Collection, CAHUT). There is nothing to suggest the time or content of Pierre's message to Blanque, but it had to have been sent after his escape but before his arrival at Grand Isle. Given that Blanque was an attorney, Pierre was most likely writing about his indictment for piracy.
80. New Orleans, Gazette and New-Orleans Advertiser, September 8, 1814.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid., September 6, 8, 1814.
83. Morphy to Apodaca, September 5, 1814, Legajo 1836, AGI-Newberry.
84. Mateo Gonzalez Manrique to Apodaca, September 1814, Legajo 1815, AGI-Newberry.
85. Anonymous to Dear Sir, August 8, 1814, Latour, Memoir, pp. v—vi.
86. Manuscript of Historical Memoir, Latour Papers, HNOC.
87. Laffite to Blanque, September 7, 1814, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
88. The time of Lockyer's departure is uncertain, but September 7 seems the likely date. His laconic report to Percy on September 11 suggests that he left immediately after boarding his ship on September 4, b
ut that is clearly not the case, for Laffite's September 7 letter states that Sophie is off the Barataria pass. Moreover, Lockyer's report states that it was written immediately on his arrival at Pensacola, yet it was at best a three- or four-day voyage from Grand Isle. If Lockyer had just arrived at Pensacola on September 11, then he had to have left Barataria September 7 or 8. Lockyer's report, in fact, is very skimpy. It says nothing about Lockyer meeting with Laffite, nor of Laffite's request for two weeks to prepare to aid the British, most probably because he concluded that Nicholls's offer had been rebuffed and his mission had failed, and the less said the better. Lockyer's tone in his report certainly suggests that he regards the matter as closed, and Sugden found nothing in subsequent British correspondence to indicate that they continued to think of the Baratarians (Lockyer to Percy, September 11, 1814, Sugden, "British Offer," pp. 165, 167). The only other source shedding light is Latour's manuscript of Historical Memoir, Latour Papers, HNOC, but it is even less specific, saying only that "after the time fixed"—presumably the fifteen days Laffite asked for, which is clearly wrong—"the English corvette returned, no doubt to have the answer, since it went back and forth several times in front of the pass."
89. Deposition of John Blanque, April 22, 1815, United States vs. Certain Goods taken at Barataria, Case #0746, Parsons Collection, CAHUT.
90. Manuscript of Historical Memoir, Latour Papers, HNOC.
91. Jean Laffite to Claiborne, n.d. [September 10, 1814], Parsons Collection, CAHUT. Jack C. Ramsay, Jr., Jean Laffite, Prince of Pirates (Austin, TX, 1996), p. 165n, dates this letter to September 4, as does Saxon, Lafitte, pp. 143, 145. It is clear from the context, however, that it could not have been written on that date. The failure to mention Pierre being in jail is one clue, for that had been Jean's prime concern in his September 4 letter to Blanque. Conclusive, however, is Pierre's own September 10 letter to Blanque, cited above, in which he mentions the letter his brother has written that day to Claiborne.
TEN
1. No documentation pinpoints the date on which Blanque delivered the Lockyer correspondence to Claiborne, but Claiborne notified Andrew Jackson of it on September 8. He mentioned on that date that he had had time to authenticate Jean Laffite's signature, and also to meet over the correspondence with his council, which suggests September 7 at the latest. Since Laffite could not have dispatched the correspondence to Blanque before the afternoon of September 4, and the bayou water route to New Orleans was more than sixty miles from Grand Terre, much of it requiring rowing, a journey of less than two days is unlikely. Thus late September 6 or the next morning seems the best guess as to Blanque's receipt of the papers. It would require a little more time to hand them to Claiborne.
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