t of desperation he procured a large and fast sailing brigantine
mounting sixteen guns and having selected a crew of one hundred and
sixty men he started without any commission as a regular pirate
determined to rob all nations and neither to give or receive quarter. A
British sloop of war which was cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, having
heard that Lafitte himself was at sea, kept a sharp look out from the
mast head; when one morning as an officer was sweeping the horizon with
his glass he discovered a long dark looking vessel, low in the water,
but having very tall masts, with sails white as the driven snow. 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. The sloop of war entered her men over the
starboard bow and a terrific contest with pistols and cutlasses ensued;
Lafitte received two wounds at this time which disabled him, a grape
shot broke the bone of his right leg and he received a cut in the
abdomen, but his crew fought like tigers and the deck was ankle deep
with blood and gore; the captain of the boarders received such a
tremendous blow on the head from the butt end of a musket, as stretched
him senseless on the deck near Lafitte, who raised his dagger to stab
him to the heart. But the tide of his existence was ebbing like a
torrent, his brain was giddy, his aim faltered and the point descended
in the Captain's right thigh; dragging away the blade with the last
convulsive energy of a death struggle,