hodox pirate omitted the
business with the pick and shovel and the chart with the significant
crosses and compass bearings, but the prosaic facts of history are due
to have their innings.

For example, there was Jean Lafitte who amassed great riches in the
pursuit of his profession and whose memory has inspired innumerable
treasure-seeking expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico and along the coast
of Central America. After ravaging the commerce of the East India
Company in the waters of the Far East, he set up his headquarters on an
island among the bayous and cypress swamps of that desolate region
below New Orleans that is known as Barrataria. A deep-water pass ran
to the open sea, only two leagues distant, and on the shores of the
sheltered harbor of Grand Terre, Lafitte organized the activities of a
large number of pirates and smugglers and formed a flourishing colony;
a corporation, in its way, for disposing of the merchandise filched
from honest shipping. These marauders posed as privateers, and some of
them had French and other commissions for sailing against the Spanish,
but there was a great deal of laxity in such trifles as living up to
the letter of the law.

At Grand Terre, Lafitte and his people sold the cargoes of their prizes
by public auction, and from all parts of lower Louisiana
bargain-hunters flocked to Barrataria to deal in this tempting traffic.
The goods thus purchased were smuggled into New Orleans and other
nearby ports, and Lafitte's piratical enterprises became so notorious
that the government of the United States sent an expedition against him
in 1814, commanded by Commodore Patterson. At Grand Terre he found a
settlement so great in force and numbers as to constitute a small
kingdom ruled by Lafitte. The commodore described the encounter in a
letter to the Secretary of War, and said in part:

"At half-past eight o'clock A.M. on the 16th of June, made the Island
of Barrataria, and discovered a number of vessels in the harbor some of
which showed the colors of Carthagena. At two o'clock, perceived the
pirates forming their vessels, ten in number, including prizes, into a
line of battle near the entrance of the harbor, and making every
preparation to offer battle. At ten o'clock, wind light and variable,
formed the order of battle with six gun boats and the _Sea Horse_
tender, mounting one six pounder and fifteen men, and a launch mounting
one twelve pound carronade; the schooner _Carolina_