The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-07-10
PATRIOT PIRATE OF THE GULF.
French Privateer Who had Commits
sion to Plunder Spanish Ships.

with So,OUO,OOO III SOlQ IoI polI ou
the Caribbean Sea-and not pirate
to fear! What a prize that vessel
would have been in the brave days of
old. when Jean Lafitte, the patriot
pirate of the Gulf, ruled over little
outlaw kingdom of his own within a
Jew miles of the city of New Orleans.
A picturesque figure was Jean La
fitte, with a graceful, courtly deviltry
about him which made him popular
with many of the most estimable
dwellers in New Orleans. Handsome,
able, averse to the shedding of blood,
and even possessed of loyalty to the
government whose excise laws he
made it his business to break.
Laftte, as you may guess, was
French. He drifted to Louisiana in
the early years of the nineteenth
century, and set up in piracy in the
Bay of Bartaria, a sheltered harbor
on the Gulf of Mexico, protected by a
long island called Grand Terre, where
Jean Lafitte dwelt in a house of brick,
with broad and comfortable verandas,
where one might loll at ease in a
hammock, smoking and drinking
lazily, while pirate chiefs filed in to
bring reports of plunder taken and
prospects ahead.
No crude and common pirate was
this Jean Lafitte. He held a priva-
teer's commission from the republic
of Carthagena, which has been re-
Gently established in South America
and has long since been forgotten,
and this commission gave him the
right to plunder Spanish ships. Per-
haps he plundered other ships, too;
but the Spanish were his principal
victims. Laftte's followers were
motley collection-black, white, yell
low and red-restless and reckless
royers of the sea. One must admire
the ability of the man in keeping
them as we'll under control as he did,
for there was no looting of the near
by coast-no disorder in Louisiana.
Laftte traficked in silk and gold and
negroes; fulfilled his contract prompt
", sold his goods openly at auction
even in the city of New Orleans and
had many friends among the plant
ers.
He was popular, too; there is no
doubt of that. Had it been other
wise, he would not have been permit
ted to remain five years in Baratarla.
AS early as 1909, we find governors
of Louisiana laundering against him,
but Laftte went calmly about his
business. Occasionally revenue
officer was killed in brush with the
pirates. Invariably Lafitte expressed
his sorrow that bloodshed had be-
come necessary. A case was brought
against him in the Federal court; the
district attorney was a man named
Grymes. Lafitte went to see Grymes,
and the result of the visit was that
the district attorney resigned his
office and undertook Lafitte's defense.
He and the lawyer who assisted him
we're promised $4,000 apiece for
their services and got it. After the
case was dismissed, Grymes went
back to Barataria to receive his fee
and spent a week feasting with the
pirates, who treated him with prince
ly hospitality and escorted him back
to the Mississippi in handsome
yawl, laden with caskets of gold and
silver.
Repeated attempts had been made
to organize military expedition to
destroy Laftte's pirate colony, but
up to the year 1914 they had always
come to nothing. In September of
that year a British brig anchored six
miles from Barataria Pass, and its
captain came ashore and offered La
fitte a captains commission in the
British navy and $4,000 if he would
join the British in an attack against
New Orleans.
Laftte pretended to consider the
offer, sending word meantime to
member of the legislature of the
British captains offer and declaring
that he would never accept it. He
sent another letter to Governor Clai-
borne, who had offered $4,000 for La
fitte's head, and for whose head La
fitte in return, in spirit of gay bra
vado, had offered reward of $780,
600. Lafitte suggested that the gov
ernor extend clemency to his pirates,
who in return would aid in the de-
tense of the state against the British
The offer was rejected, and an expe-
dition under Commodore Patterson,
of the United States navy, tore down