enough to control his fellows, and scoundrel enough to carry on a criminal profession. All of which are very similar to the attributes that go to the making a successful sea captain or a successful pirate, and which may help to explain why so many good seamen have been smugglers and so many excellent smugglers seamen while, as I have before pointed out, pirates and smugglers have ever been birds more or less of a feather. Many a freebooter, who was successful enough to keep the noose from settling about his neck and lived to retire and spend his declining years in peace upon his ill-gotten gains, would have made a far better smuggler than pirate, and would have won far greater fortune in the allied profession. And many a pirate tried his hand at smuggling as a side line, while smugglers have ever been ready to dabble in piracy when occasion offered,—and often with marked success. Indeed, if we get down to brass tacks, so to speak, we will find that some of the most notorious and famous pirates, and especially those forerunners of the pirates, the buccaneers, were as much smugglers as corsairs, while famed smugglers were really nothing less than pirates oftentimes. Lafitte for example, who in fiction has always been dubbed a pirate, was merely a smuggler, and, proving an exception to the rule, a most gallant and patriotic gentleman. Moreover, he carried on his smug gling on such a grand scale and along such efficient business lines that he and his comrades deserve especial consideration as smugglers in a class by themselves. Just who Lafitte, or rather the Lafittes,-for there were two brothers-were, is not known and is of no consequence. The two, Jean and Pierre, arrived in New Orleans from parts unknown in 1809. They were French, and by profession blacksmiths; intelligent, well bred, educated and altogether charming gentlemen. What is more, they possessed some money and at once opened a smithy in Bourbon Street, which of course was operated entirely by slaves, the Lafittes never smirching their, delicate hands by manual labor. Both brothers were well liked, though Jean, the younger of the two, was the favorite, a fair-skinned youth, blackhaired, black eyed, with a merry smile, and an accomplished linguist. Pierre, more taciturn and less accomplished than his brother, was much like Jean in personal appearance, and though received as a great acquisition by the convivial gentlemen of the town he was less in favor with the ladies who flocked about brother Jean whenever he appeared at balls or other functions. The Lafittes' blacksmith trade grew rapidly and prospered amazingly, and the two brothers dressed always in the height of fashion and were liberally supplied with ready cash though, from events that later transpired, we may quite safely assume that all their earnings did not come to them via the hammers and anvils of their smithy on Bourbon Street. In other words, the Lafitte brothers no doubt followed the fashion of most respected citizens of the Crescent City at that time and took fliers at smuggling, much as New Yorkers today place a finger occasionally in the stock market pie with the hope of drawing out a golden plum. Indeed, smuggling at that time had for long been an almost openly accepted feature of Louisiana's commerce and business. In the earlier colonial days, under the French and Spanish, it had thriven and when the territory was acquired by the United States the business had become so firmly rooted that the inhabitants considered it their prerogative to smuggle, and defied the government and laws as flagrantly and brazenly as the rum runners defy the Eighteenth Amendment today. And aside from ordinary smuggling the Louisianians carried on a brisk and lucrative trade with the pirates and privateersmen of the Gulf, who disposed of seized and stolen cargoes at bargain prices and left it to the purchasers to smuggle the goods in. So extensive had this business become that a regular market or center had been established at the island of Grande Terre, a narrow sandy strip six miles in length and half as wide which bounds Barataria Bay on the seaward side. Here were buildings, houses and sheds maintained by the islanders or Baratarians as they were called, and where, practically immune from interference by the authorities, they could carry on their business without fear or danger. In fact they practically ruled the coast between the Mississippi Delta and Bayou La Fourche,—a distance of fully fifty miles; and controlled the local trade. In a way, too, they had much in common with the old buccaneers of Jamaica and Tortuga. Public sentiment favored them; they were far too powerful and too numerous to be suppressed by ordinary means; they were banded together as a rude sort of organization, and while never pirates, still they consorted with the freebooters, welcomed the latter to their shores and were often privateers. Like the buccaneers, too, the Baratarians acknowledged no man their master; leaders were chosen as occasion arose, and their sales were made at random and consequently many times at a loss. These faults of the smuggler community were soon realized by the two blacksmith brothers, and with keen business acumen, Jean saw a golden opportunity. With his social position, his friendship with prominent merchants and bankers, he realized that he could be of inestimable value to the Baratarians while they could be of fully as great service to him. Thus, very soon, he was acting as their banker and commercial agent in New Orleans, and wisely taking his advice in business matters, the |