Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1872-02-03

/
Latitte and number of his men ac.
cepted, others dispersed and the gang
was broken up.
| LATTE and his associates fought well
at the subsequent battle of New Or
leans, contributing by their courage and
skill very much to the success of the
day. In the hottest of the fight, while
the British were attempting to scale the
American breastworks, Lafitte, forget,
ting where he was, shouted the well
known boarding cry of his ship, and in
an instant himself and all his followers
had leaped the breastworks and on the
outside were engaged with their cut
lasses in hand-to-hand fight with the
English soldiers. The latter gave way
their officers hurried to rally them.
! Down, down, one after another, went
three officers before Lafitte's cutlass,
while his followers did equally fearful
execution among the soldiery. In
many hard fought battle upon his
own deck the pirate and his follwers
had been well trained and tried, and
now in hand to hand conflict, perfectly
at home, the destruction they made in
the British ranks was such that they
were driven in disorder and with heavy
loss from that part of the field, and the
| pirates returned to the breastworks in
triumph.
At the conclusion of the war Laftte
and most of his men formed colony
and settled on the little island of Bar
rataria, and for time pursued an hon
est calling. The old spirit was too
strong within them, however, and they
soon fitted out ships and sent them out
for plunder on the high sea-. The au-
thorities got after them, and one
after another the pirates vessels and
their crews were destroyed and their
settlement at Barrataria (which had
become nothing but pirate rendez-
vous) was broken up. In fit of des
peration Laftte collected all his follow
ers that he could find, procured ship,
nailed the black flag to the mast, and
started to wage war against everything
atloat and neither give nor receive
quarter. He finally fell in with an
English frigate and fight of extermi-
nation commenced. The English nan
was successful; Lafitte and nearly all
his crew were killed, and his ship
burned and sunk. Two or three of the
pirates were taken prisoner but subse-
quently escaped, and what afterward
became of them was never certainly
known.
AS Lafitte after fitting out his last
vessel made several valuable prizes, and
as but little booty was found on his
ship, it was supposed that he had buried
his treasure on some one of the many
islands among which he was won't to
cruise; but subsequent search revealed
but little and that little was not known
certainly to have been concealed by him.
Having now disposed of the pirates,
will proceed to get on track of part
of the treasure supposed to have been
buried by them previous to their exter-
mination. During one of the several
| trips of some two hundred miles below
Memphis, Tenn, which | made while
resided there, remained several days
with planter who had formerly been a
river captain, and whom | will intro.
duce as Captain Sinclair. The house in
which he lived was rather old and sin
gular affair which had been built many
years before by the then owner of the
plantation, and part of which the
captain was having pulled down, with
the intention of putting up something
more modern in its style and appear
ance.
The party who built the house was a
man of whom but little was known. He
was dark, forbidding and uncommuni-
cative; he came and bought the place,
brought on some fifty slaves and an
overseer, had the house built and set
the overseer to manage the plantation
| and with the negroes make all that he
could out of it while he kept closely
within the house, with an occasional alb
sence of several weeks to no one knew
where. From one of these visits he
never returned, and having no relatives
known, and leaving no papers, the es-
tate passed through the proper forms
into other hands. He was known only
as Pedro Goblentz; had but one servant
about the house, a negro, as repulsive,
as SCARED and as unccmmunicatlve as
himself. This negro always went with
him, and, like his master, never re-
turned. They always spoke to each
other in a language which no one about
understood, and the titles by which
they addressed each other were simply
Pedro and Gait.
! l ought to have mentioned that there
was at Captain Sinclair's at the time |
was there, New Orleans friend of the
captains named Haywood, or as the
captain called him, Colonel Haywood.
He was or had been pilot between
New Orleans and Havana, and had
| come up on visit to the captain.
had gone one day over to the gin
house, about half mile from the dwell
ing lat the request of Captain Sinclair), J,
to examine the engine, which had got
out of order. On my return to the
house l found the captain and the
colonel very busy trying to decipher
what seemed to be an old, musty piece
of writing, which was rather illegibly
written in English, French, Spanish,
and yet another language which nei-
ther of them understood. The English
each could make out, and the captain
could read French and the colonel
French and Spanish, but the fourth
language neither could decipher.
"Here, Memphis" called the captain
to me he had got in habit of calling
me "Memphis'O, "come and see if you
can read this internal Dutch,' at the
same time extending the paper toward
me. He had no idea that it was
"Dutch," as he called it, or that l could
read it if it was such. looked over
the paper and saw that part of it was
written in German characters. Said l,
Gentleman, can read part of this