_Wherein a Gentleman Blacksmith Arrives upon the Scene_
“Who is Jean Lafitte?” District-Attorney Grymes looked at his guest in
surprise. Edward Marshall, a stoop-shouldered, fastidiously dressed man,
nodded.
“Exactly. I’ve only been in your blessed city two short days, and yet all
I hear is ‘Jean Lafitte’ ... ‘Jean Lafitte’!”
John R. Grymes, district attorney of New Orleans and former member of
the Virginia bar, laughed. He was a handsome man of middle age, with
a leonine head, a splendid physique, and the unmistakable stamp of
aristocrat on every bold feature. There were wrinkles about his eyes,
however, and the observant spectator might have detected a few, although
a very few, signs of dissipation.
“First of all, Lafitte, or rather, the Lafittes, are blacksmiths.”
“I know that much!”
“Well, they are what might be called ‘gentlemen blacksmiths.’ They are
both men of unusual education and refinement, and prominent in business
here.”
“So I gathered ... but what is all this talk about them?”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to begin at the beginning. Here, Rappahannock,
bring some of that claret from bin four.”
Rappahannock, the butler, obeyed, disappearing inside the house. The
district attorney and his guest were sitting on the wide, white-columned
veranda, of a brick Colonial country home. The roof, of red-painted
cypress, was to be seen from the road, peeping out of a grove of ancient
magnolias, its airy belvedere rising jauntily above the trees. Red-brick
walks wound in and out the grounds, and a long winding drive swept down
to the tall, brick-pillared gates. Jasmine and crimson-hued oleanders
bloomed in profusion, together with crisp boughs of pomegranates, orange
trees, and massed thickets of acacia. It was a typical Louisianian home
with a touch of Colonial Virginia.
This was the stirring year of 1810, the year ending that memorable decade
when the recently established United States government was the most
unpopular institution in Louisiana; when the aristocratic Creoles, both
French and Spanish, were still voicing their emphatic protests against
such hateful innovations as American dances, trial by jury, politics,
anti-smuggling laws, and the printing of the Governor’s proclamation in
English! It was the beginning of the end of French social domination
in the Mississippi Valley, the state of Louisiana ... and that “Little
Paris” of the Creoles, New Orleans.
And it is here that we meet Jean Lafitte again.
“To begin,” said Grymes, the claret having been brought, “the Lafittes,
gentlemen blacksmiths, are men of means, of some social position;
capitalists. They are French, of course.... It is said that they come
from the south of France, for they speak with that accent peculiar to
natives of the Garonne region. I am not sure of this, but it makes no
difference. To get to the subject, however, which you asked me about ...
listen: I’ll have to quote you a little history, Marshall; I’ll try not
to bore you.
“No doubt you’ve heard about the smugglers, or pirates, hereabouts? Yes?
As you know, the Gulf of Mexico has always been a breeding-place for
pirates, buccaneers of the old type. Well, in recent years, piracy has
gradually died out. To be sure, there is still some lawlessness in the
Caribbean, but the pirates of years back—Morgan, Kidd, and the rest of
their ilk—are extinct.”
“I don’t know about that, Grymes. Up in New York we still get reports of
looted vessels, outrages of all kinds.”
“Well, perhaps so, but those are isolated cases. I certainly hope so,
anyway. But there is very little prey for an ambitious buccaneer these
days. The celebrated treasure cities of South America are no more and the
only treasure ships that sail these days are too strong to fear pirates.”
“Yes, but what’s all this talk—”
“Just a moment, I’m coming to that. As I said, there is not much booty
lying around nowadays to cause a self-respecting pirate to risk his neck.
But these waters, the Gulf in particular, still offer many opportunities
of aggrandizement for enterprising nomads of the sea. And personally,
Marshall, I think that the gentlemen of fortune of to-day, instead of
seeking gold, pieces of eight, and all that sort of thing, deal in human
booty! Instead of attacking treasure galleons they raid slave ships! They
traffic in black ivory.
“But first, let me refresh your memory a little. Two years ago, in
January, 1808, I believe, Congress passed a law prohibiting the further
importation of slaves into this country.”
Marshall showed interest.
“I remember that fool law well,” he said, “and for a good reason. It made
me lose ten thousand dollars.”
Grymes nodded.
“Well, we were all hard hit,” he remarked, “but especially our section
of the country, the South. It’s no use telling you that the Southern
States have to rely on slave labor, solely. You know all that. But you
cannot know how hard Louisiana is hit, because this is a newly acquired
territory and we are deprived of our only source of labor. At any rate,
due to the lack of labor, our crops rotted and business came practically
to a standstill.”
Marshall grunted.
“It’s the same thing all over the country.”
“But not as bad as here,” added Grymes, quickly, “for that same year the
price of slaves rose to a thousand dollars a head! In Cuba, to the south
of us, they could be gotten for three hundred dollars apiece. Therefore,
the result was—”
“That they went to Cuba to get them—”
“—And smuggled them in—exactly! That’s how the practice of
slave-smuggling started. The first smugglers, men of doubtful
antecedents, for the most part, bought their slaves in Cuba and, sailing
across the Gulf, landed them in out-of-the-way harbors on our coast, from
where they were marched overland to the auction markets of Baton Rouge
and New Orleans.
“It’s curious, Marshall, but these Creoles seem to be born smugglers.
Smuggling, it appears, has long been almost an acknowledged part of
Louisiana’s commerce. It flourished mostly, I believe, in the old Spanish
and French colonial days, and when Napoleon sold us this territory it had
become such a profitable business that the Creoles, for the most part,
who bear our government no love, as you know, have continued to defy the
law. Indeed, they seem to take pleasure in doing so.
“I suppose you also know that for years New Orleans has been a noted spot
for _contrabandistas_ of many kinds, together with refugees from San
Domingo and revolutionists from South American republics. And there has
been a good trade carried on between our merchants and the smugglers.
“Naturally, at the advent of the law and its resulting condition the
practice of smuggling slaves was born and developed. Place a ban upon
anything for which there is a public demand and you create lawbreakers.
However, a new class of people have entered into the smuggling trade.
It is said that many of the best people in New Orleans, men of wealth
and social position, merchants, planters, bankers, and politicians, are
all connected with this traffic in slaves. Incredible as it may seem, it
is nevertheless true that the Lafittes, who are known to be intimately
connected with it, move in excellent Creole circles.
“In the last year, however, the smuggling business has changed its
aspect, and that in a very drastic manner.
“These smuggling gentlemen soon realized that the legitimate slavers
carried small, poorly armed crews, and as swiftly decided that it would
be more profitable to take this—er—black ivory from the slavers by
force, rather than purchase it in Havana. They acted accordingly.
“Consequently the smugglers have become out-and-out pirates and are
at present conducting an exceedingly prosperous business in captured
cargoes. Anyway, despite the combined efforts of British, French, and
our own warships, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to-day have become a
dangerous thoroughfare for commerce of any sort, for the ‘black ivory’
buccaneers make no discrimination as to booty.”
Marshall yawned delicately and sipped his claret.
“But where does Lafitte come in?” he asked. “For the life of me—”
“This is where Lafitte comes in. As you may know, the smithy of the
Lafitte brothers is on the corner of Bourbon and St. Philippe streets—a
large, barn-like building occupied by a good many slaves; real
blacksmiths, who toil at the forges.
“What supplies the pirates cannot get from captured ships they get in
New Orleans. It is a matter of common knowledge that they have purchased
chains and caufles used in ‘black ivory’ from the Lafitte smithy.
The Lafittes have grown to be popular with the smuggler-buccaneers.
Jean and Pierre Dominique Lafitte, who are, by the way, exceptionally
shrewd business men, are their chief agents and bankers. This is common
knowledge, as I said before.
“And the Lafitte smithy is, therefore, a sort of clearing house for many
questionable transactions.
“Jean Lafitte, in particular, is a very remarkable man, in my estimation.
He has, as has been proved, a rare executive ability, coupled with a
genius for organization and, what is more, a magnificent contempt for
the law that transcends even that of his neighbors. That is one of the
reasons for his popularity with the Creoles, perhaps.
“His success in managing the affairs of the buccaneers, in which
his usefulness to them has become a necessity, so I understand, has
obtained for him a complete control over their affairs and, what is
more astonishing, themselves. That alone demonstrates the force of his
personality. I, myself, will vouch for the latter. He has the most
charming manners and magnetic personality of any man I have met, and I
have met quite a few.
“This is what you are hearing so much of, about Jean Lafitte. That is
the story of his ascendancy over the pirates. Of course, all of this was
not done in a day, or a month. He had first to unite their many rival
interests, compose their differences, and form them into an organization
which pools its varied resources for the good of the whole. At least,
that is what is said of him. The future will tell. But if it is true,
then, in my opinion, Jean Lafitte is a genius, for no one but a genius
could succeed in such an apparently impossible undertaking, and no
mind but that of a genius could have given birth to such a colossal
conception!”
He paused. Marshall seemed infected with Grymes’s enthusiasm.
“This Lafitte must be a wonderful man, indeed,” he said, “but you have
forgotten to tell me one thing ... what, or where, is Barataria?”
Grymes looked up eagerly.
“I had forgotten! Barataria, or rather, Grande Terre, is the
headquarters of these pirates. That is how they get their name of
‘Baratarians.’ All operations of this magnitude demanded a base of
operations, and these buccaneers established one at Barataria.
“Barataria Bay, itself, is a name that is applied to all of the Gulf
coast of Louisiana from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Bayou La
Fourche, a distance of about fifty miles. The island of Grande Terre,
their headquarters proper, screens this bay from the Gulf, with which
it is connected by a deep and narrow channel. The trees of this island,
you see, are high enough to easily hide the masts of the ships of these
slave-raiders from any hostile warship cruising outside, and, in my
estimation, not a better rendezvous for their purpose could be found
anywhere in the Gulf!
“Between the Mississippi and the Bayou, there is an intricate network of
navigable channels that extends almost to this city. I am not familiar
with it myself, and, really, no one is but these buccaneers. This makes
their headquarters all the more desirable, as it gives them what might be
called a back-stairs connection with New Orleans. It might also be termed
a direct line of communication between the wholesale and retail markets
of this rapidly developing trade. Indeed, it has come to the pass that
this combination of which of course the brain is Lafitte, really controls
the rise and fall of slave prices, and a few other commodities, in the
Mississippi Valley.
“Do you wonder why the name of Jean Lafitte is on every lip?”
Marshall looked thoughtful.
“I understand, now. And I suppose every one is wondering what he will do
next.”
“Exactly. But here, Marshall, I know I have bored you with my long talk.”
“Not at all. It is highly interesting. I would like to meet this Lafitte,
but I suppose it is impossible, for I must return to New York to-morrow.
By the way, Grymes, on my way back, I believe I will stop over in
Philadelphia and visit your charming daughter. She is at school there, is
she not?”
The district attorney nodded, his eyes suddenly tender.
“Yes, Virginia is attending Miss Borden’s school for young ladies, and
was quite a belle, I am told, at the Assembly Ball. I shall give you a
letter to her if you will be so kind as to take it. I can hardly wait
until she comes down here. She’s never been here, you know.”
Marshall answered perfunctorily. He was mentally wondering what Jean
Lafitte was going to do next.
But for that matter, Marshall was one of many.