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Updated: May 18, 2025
Two hours later Lafitte sent him word that he would accept his offer, but that he must have two weeks to get his affairs in order. With this answer, the "Sophia" lifted anchor, spread sails, and glided away. All this was a bit of diplomatic by-play on the part of Jean Lafitte. He had no notion of joining the British cause.
"Quick with that long boat, Lafitte," I ordered; and he drew our old craft alongside as we slowed down. "Get over yonder and sound for a bar. Take the boat hook. If you get four feet, we'll try it." My hardy young ruffian was nothing if not prompt, nor was he less efficient than the average deck-hand.
Sometimes the doctor almost repented having brought this misery upon her, but he comforted himself by looking forward to the calm which must surely follow this storm. One morning, Miss Lafitte not appearing at her usual time, Maurice became alarmed.
There were many lesser adventures in which Lafitte, L'Olonnois and I shared on our voyage through the long waterways leading down to the great river, but of these I make small mention, for, in truth, one boasts little of one's deeds in piracy after the fact, or of inciting piracy and making accessories before the fact, the more especially if such accessories be small but bloodthirsty boys.
From the mouth of the great river, the whole coast of Louisiana, extending north and west, is a grassy sea, a vast expanse of marsh-grass, broken here and there by inlets of the Mexican Gulf, and sluggish, winding bayous that lead up into the higher lands of the State, waterways that lead even to the back door of the Crescent City herself, but known only to oyster-gatherers, or in 1814 to the adventurous men who followed the banner of Lafitte the Baratarian pirate.
As the sloop of war had the weather gage of the pirate and could outsail her before the wind, she set her studding sails and crowded every inch of canvass in chase; as soon as Lafitte ascertained the character of his opponent, he ordered the awnings to be furled and set his big square-sail and shot rapidly through the water; but as the breeze freshened the sloop of war came up rapidly with the pirate, who, finding no chance of escaping, determined to sell his life as dearly as possible; the guns were cast loose and the shot handed up; and a fire opened upon the ship which killed a number of men and carried away her foretopmast, but she reserved her fire until within cable's distance of the pirate; when she fired a general discharge from her broadside, and a volley of small arms; the broadside was too much elevated to hit the low hull of the brigantine, but was not without effect; the foretopmast fell, the jaws of the main gaff were severed and a large proportion of the rigging came rattling down on deck; ten of the pirates were killed, but Lafitte remained unhurt.
"You, yourself, may now go and tell her that there has been a very bad mistake, Jimmy; and that she need not come." "An' make her cry worse? I ain't goin' to do it!" "Sir! This is mutiny! But did she cry, Jimmy?" "Yes. Awful. She said she was homesick. She ain't. I don't know what really is the matter. I ast Jean Lafitte, an' he said maybe you'd know.
"There is nothing like dressing the part of the shipwrecked," said I. "For myself, these same flannels will do." "Pshaw!" said young L'Olonnois, "suppose she does pitch a little it ain't any worse'n on the Mauretania when we went across. I ain't scared, are you, John?" "No," replied Jean Lafitte shyly. He was almost overawed with the ladies. But I liked the look of his eye now.
One of the oldest celebrities of Chantilly is Charles Pratt, formerly trainer and jockey for the baron Nivière and for the late Charles Lafitte, and at present in the service of the prince d'Aremberg. His system of training approached very nearly that of Henry Jennings, under whose orders and instructions he had worked for a long time.
When Marius de Tregars had finally determined to compel the bold rascals who had swindled his father to disgorge, he had taken in the Rue Lafitte a small, plainly-furnished apartment on the entresol, a fit dwelling for the man of action, the tent in which he takes shelter on the eve of battle; and he had to wait upon him an old family servant, whom he had found out of place, and who had for him that unquestioning and obstinate devotion peculiar to Breton servants.
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