in the same light, as the English
and Spanish were allies. And when a few French privateers came also upon
the scene, they helped to make the business of legitimate capture of
merchantmen, during the time of war, a very complicated affair.

But upon one point these privateers, who so often acted as pirates,
because they had not the spare time in which to work out difficult
problems of nationality, were all agreed: when they had loaded their
ships with booty, they must sail to some place where it would be safe to
dispose of it. So, in course of time, the bay of Barrataria, about
forty miles south of New Orleans and very well situated for an illegal
settlement, was chosen as a privateers' port, and a large and
flourishing colony soon grew up at the head of the bay, to which came
privateers of every nationality to dispose of their cargoes.

Of course there was no one in the comparatively desolate country about
Barrataria who could buy the valuable goods which were brought into that
port, but the great object of the owners of this merchandise was to
smuggle it up to New Orleans and dispose of it. But there could be no
legitimate traffic of this sort, for the United States at the very
beginning of the century was at peace with England, France, and Spain,
and therefore could not receive into any of her ports, goods which had
been captured from the ships of these nations. Consequently the plunder
of the privateering pirates of Barrataria was brought up to New Orleans
in all sorts of secret and underhand fashions, and sold to merchants in
that city, without the custom house having anything to do with the
importations.

Now this was great business; Jean Lafitte had a great business mind, and
therefore it was not long after his arrival at Barrataria before he was
the head man in the colony, and director-in-chief of all its operations.
Thus, by becoming a prominent figure in a piratical circle, he came to
be considered a pirate, and as such came down to us in the pages of
history.

But, in fact, Lafitte never committed an act of piracy in his life; he
was a blacksmith, and knew no more about sailing a ship or even the
smallest kind of a boat than he knew about the proper construction of a
sonnet. He did not even try, like the celebrated Bonnet, to find other
people who would navigate a vessel for him, for he had no taste for the
ocean wave, and all that he had to do he did upon firm, dry land. It is
said of him that he was nev