Patrick Henry and the Frigate’s Keel: And Other Stories of a Young Nation by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page B

certain men.
    To house the steady stream of goods Laffite’s employees brought in, warehouses were needed; and since the pirates could consume only a tiny fraction of the goods, Jean Laffite was projected into the business of buying and selling. Since New Orleans was at best a limited market, soon Laffite’s flatboats began to ply the Mississippi, and presently his laces, wines and satins appeared in the New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Charleston shops. On the side, having what amounted to a Yankee instinct for enterprise, Laffite had gone into the iron grillwork business and had also opened a school for fencing. Being one of a family of five brothers, Jean had involved his relatives in his growing enterprises: Marc was a New Orleans lawyer; Pierre checked the corsairs as they came and went.
    Politics, they will explain to you down on the Delta, were not so different then from today, and it was no wonder that Jean became a power in New Orleans. He made deals … What else could you do with him; an army could not have penetrated the swamps below New Orleans and dug him out.
    He nodded at the two British officers, annoyed that they had come at just this moment, anticipating what they would say to him, trying to prod at the things which drove him, and finding difficulty in putting these vague impulses into understandable terms of dollars and cents.
    As the fishermen on the Delta remember, “He was a thief, this Laffite,” still the lilting French accent in their voice. “What else you call him, but dirty thief, same as Governor Claiborne in Orleans call him, same as President in Washington call him, dirty thief? Ah-yah! What make a thief, what make honest man?”
    The English officers, after shaking hands with Laffite, the thief, were asked in to dinner. And at dinner, they came directly to the point.
    â€œAmerica,” they said, “is done, finished, a transition, something that never really mattered. You understand?”
    Dominique You, also at the dinner, using the same phrase they use today, Ah-yah !, smiled a little and nodded. “Finished, ah-yah.” He was a neat, precise little man who had once been a captain of artillery in Napoleon’s army; he looked like a dressmaker or perfume salesman until you saw his eyes.
    Jean Laffite said nothing.
    In summing up, the visiting officer repeated things that everyone knew. In the course of a two-years’ war, America had known nothing but defeat. Her armies ran away. The residence of her President had been burned down to the ground; her shipping was driven from the seas. Her commerce was ruined. Not even a faint straw of hope.
    Dominique You munched chicken; Jean Laffite’s brown eyes were completely noncommittal. The British officer showed that he was informed on more than general affairs, for he pointed out that even while he spoke, Jean Laffite’s brother, Pierre, was in jail, put there and held there by Governor Claiborne of Louisiana.
    â€œThat is so,” Laffite agreed.
    â€œAnd the governor,” Captain Lockyer went on, “being given a choice of enemies, ourselves or you, prefers you. He knows that we intend to attack New Orleans—”
    Dominique You’s eyebrows went up.
    â€œAnd he prefers to attack you.”
    â€œI know that too,” Jean Laffite nodded. “But how do you find out about such matters?”
    â€œWe have our sources.”
    â€œAnd we have our traitors,” Laffite shrugged. “Each traitor has a price, no? What is your offer?”
    â€œA thousand pounds?”
    â€œThe governor,” Laffite said, “he put five hundred dollar on my head. So I put thirty thousand dollar on his.”
    â€œA captain’s rating?”
    â€œI’m more like a general right now,” Laffite grinned.
    â€œA pardon for yourself and all your men.”
    Dominique You slapped his knee and bubbled with laughter. While the two officers looked at him, Laffite