But if the fact that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor.  When the British were making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them.  As the American government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the pseudo-pirate to have accepted the British offer, but what Lafitte did was to go up and report the matter at New Orleans, giving the city the first authentic information of the contemplated attack, and offering to join with his men in the defense, in exchange for amnesty.

A good many people, however, did not believe his story, and a good many others thought it beneath the dignity of the government to treat with a man of his dubious occupation.  Therefore poor Lafitte was not listened to, but, upon the contrary, only succeeded in stirring up trouble for himself, for an expedition was immediately sent against him; his settlement at Barataria—­on the gulf, about forty miles below the city—­was demolished and the inhabitants driven to the woods and swamps.

But in spite of this discouraging experience, Lafitte would not join the British, and it came about that when the Battle of New Orleans was about to be fought, Andrew Jackson, who had a short time before referred to Lafitte and his men as a band of “hellish banditti,” was glad to accept their aid.  Dominique You—­with his fine pirate name—­commanded a gun, and the others fought according to the best piratical tradition.  After the battle was won, the Baratarians were pardoned by President Madison.  Incidentally it may be remarked here that the American line of defense on the plains of Chalmette, below the city, had been indicated some years before by the French General Moreau, hero of Hohenlinden, as the proper strategic position for safeguarding New Orleans on the south.

Even after he had been pardoned, Lafitte felt, not without some justice, that he had been ill-used by the Americans, and because of this he determined to leave the country.  He set sail with a band of his followers for other climes, but what became of them is not known.  Some think their ship went down in a storm which crossed the Gulf soon after their departure; others believe that they reached Yucatan, and that Lafitte died there.  Whatever his fate, he did not improve it by departing from New Orleans, for had he not done so he would, at the end, have been given a handsome burial and a nice monument like that of Dominique You—­which may be seen to this day in the old cemetery on Claiborne Avenue, between Iberville and St. Louis Streets.

Having disposed of literary men and pirates, we now come in logical sequence to composers and actors.  Be it known, then, that E.H.  Sothern first raised, in the house at 79 Bienville Street, the voice which has charmed us in the theater, and that Louis Gottschalk, composer of the almost too well-known “Last Hope,” was also born in New Orleans.