ulted in a decision not to have anything to do with
Lafitte in the way of negotiations, and to hurry forward the
preparations which had been made for the destruction of the dangerous
and injurious settlement at Barrataria. In consequence of this action of
the council, Commodore Patterson sailed in a very few days down the
Mississippi and attacked the pirate settlement at Barrataria with such
effect that most of her ships were taken, many prisoners and much
valuable merchandise captured, and the whole place utterly destroyed.
Lafitte, with the greater part of his men, had fled to the woods, and so
escaped capture.

Captain Lockyer at the appointed time arrived off the harbor of
Barrataria and blazed away with his signal guns for forty-eight hours,
but receiving no answer, and fearing to send a boat into the harbor,
suspecting treachery on the part of Lafitte, he was obliged to depart in
ignorance of what had happened.

When the papers and letters which had been sent to Governor Claiborne by
Lafitte were made public, the people of Louisiana and the rest of the
country did not at all agree with the Governor and his council in regard
to their decision and their subsequent action, and Edward Livingston, a
distinguished lawyer of New York, took the part of Lafitte and argued
very strongly in favor of his loyalty and honesty in the affair.

Even when it was discovered that all the information which Lafitte had
sent was perfectly correct, and that a formidable attack was about to be
made upon New Orleans, General Jackson, who was in command in that part
of the country, issued a very savage proclamation against the British
method of making war, and among their wicked deeds he mentioned nothing
which seemed to him to be worse than their endeavor to employ against
the citizens of the United States the band of "hellish banditti"
commanded by Jean Lafitte!

But public opinion was strongly in favor of the ex-pirate of the Gulf,
and as things began to look more and more serious in regard to New
Orleans, General Jackson was at last very glad, in spite of all that he
had said, to accept the renewed offers of Lafitte and his men to assist
in the defence of the city, and in consequence of his change of mind
many of the former inhabitants of Barrataria fought in the battle of New
Orleans and did good work. Their services were so valuable, in fact,
that when the war closed President Madison issued a proclamation in
which it was stated t