shop (in which he is said to have made some of the fine
wrought iron balcony railings which still adorn the old town), and went
to Barataria, became nothing more nor less than a "fence" for pirates
and privateers, taking their booty, smuggling it up to New Orleans, and
selling it there on commission.

But if the fact that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against
Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor. When the British were
making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and
to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As the American
government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition
against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the
pseudo-pirate to have accepted the British offer, but what Lafitte did
was to go up and report the matter at New Orleans, giving the city the
first authentic information of the contemplated attack, and offering to
join with his men in the defense, in exchange for amnesty.

A good many people, however, did not believe his story, and a good many
others thought it beneath the dignity of the government to treat with a
man of his dubious occupation. Therefore poor Lafitte was not listened
to, but, upon the contrary, only succeeded in stirring up trouble for
himself, for an expedition was immediately sent against him; his
settlement at Barataria--on the gulf, about forty miles below the
city--was demolished and the inhabitants driven to the woods and swamps.

But in spite of this discouraging experience, Lafitte would not join the
British, and it came about that when the Battle of New Orleans was about
to be fought, Andrew Jackson, who had a short time before referred to
Lafitte and his men as a band of "hellish banditti," was glad to accept
their aid. Dominique You--with his fine pirate name--commanded a gun,
and the others fought according to the best piratical tradition. After
the battle was won, the Baratarians were pardoned by President Madison.
Incidentally it may be remarked here that the American line of defense
on the plains of Chalmette, below the city, had been indicated some
years before by the French General Moreau, hero of Hohenlinden, as the
proper strategic position for safeguarding New Orleans on the south.

Even after he had been pardoned, Lafitte felt, not without some justice,
that he had been ill-used by the Americans, and because of this he
determined to leave the country. He set sail with a band of his
f