be taken
by land. Our naval force having always been small in that quarter,
exertions for the destruction of this illicit establishment could not be
expected from them until augmented; for an officer of the navy, with
most of the gun-boats on that station, had to retreat from an
overwhelming force of La Fitte's. So soon as the augmentation of the
navy authorised an attack, one was made; the overthrow of this banditti
has been the result: and now this almost invulnerable point and key to
New Orleans is clear of an enemy, it is to be hoped the government will
hold it by a strong military force."--American Newspaper.

[The story of the "Pirates of Barataria," which an American print, the
_National Intelligencer_, was the first to make public, is quoted _in
extenso_ by the _Weekly Messenger_ (published at Boston) of November 4,
1814. It is remarkable that a tale which was destined to pass into the
domain of historical romance should have been instantly seized upon and
turned to account by Byron, whilst it was as yet half-told, while the
legend was still in the making. Jean Lafitte, the Franco-American
Conrad, was born either at Bayonne or Bordeaux, circ. 1780, emigrated
with his elder brother Pierre, and settled at New Orleans, in 1809, as a
blacksmith. Legitimate trade was flat, but the delta of the Mississippi,
with its labyrinth of creeks and islands and _bayous_, teemed with
pirates or merchant-smugglers. Accordingly, under the nominal sanction
of letters of marque from the Republic of Cartagena, and as belligerents
of Spain, the brothers, who had taken up their quarters on Grande Terre,
an island to the east of the "Grand Pass," or channel of the Bay of
Barataria, swept the Gulph of Mexico with an organised flotilla of
privateers, and acquired vast booty in the way of specie and living
cargoes of claves. Hence the proclamation of the Governor of Louisiana,
W. C. C. Claiborne, in which (November 24, 1813) he offered a sum of
$500 for the capture of Jean Lafitte. For the sequel of this first act
of the drama the "American newspaper" is the sole authority. The facts,
however, if facts they be, which are pieced together by Charles Etienne
Arthur Gayarre, in the _History of Louisiana_ (1885, iv. 301, sq.), and
in two articles contributed to the American _Magazine of History_,
October and November, 1883, are as curious and romantic as the legend.
It would appear that early in September, 1814, a British officer,
Colonel E. Ni