command of colonel Nicholls, of the artillery, an enterprising, active, and brave officer, and on the 4th of August touched at the Havanna, in hopes of obtaining the co-operation of the Spanish governor, the assistance of some gun-boats and small vessels, with permission to land their troops and artillery at Pensacola. On the refusal of the captain-general, they sailed for Pensacola, determined to land there; although the captain-general had positively refused to grant them permission. (See Appendix, No. 2.)

Colonel Nicholls accordingly landed at Pensacola, where he established his head-quarters, and enlisted and publicly drilled Indians, who wore the British uniform in the streets.

The object of that inconsiderable expedition appears to have been to sound the disposition of the inhabitants of the Floridas and Louisiana; to procure the information necessary for more important operations, and to secure pilots to conduct the expedition on our coast and in our waters, rather than to attempt any thing of importance.

Colonel Nicholls directed captain Lockyer of the brig Sophia, to convey an officer to Barataria with a packet for Mr. Lafitte, or whoever else might be at the head of the privateers on Grande Terre.

To give a correct idea of that establishment at Barataria, of which so much has been said, it is necessary to enter into some details, by a digression which will naturally bring us back to our subject.

BARATARIA.

Ar the period of the taking of Guadaloupe by the British, most of the privateers commissioned by the government of that island, and which were then on a cruise, not being able to return to any of the WestIndia islands, made for Barataria, there to take in a supply of water and provisions, recruit the health of their crews, and dispose of their prizes, which could not be admitted into any of the ports of the United States; we being at that time in peace with Great Britain. Most of the commissions granted to privateers by the French government at Guadaloupe, having expired some time after the declaration of the independence of Carthagena, many of the privateers repaired to that port, for the purpose of obtaining from the new government, commissions for cruising against Spanish vessels. They were all received by the people of Carthagena with the enthusiasm which is ever observed in a country that for the first time shakes off the yoke of subjection; and indeed a considerable number of men, accustomed to great political convulsions, inured to the fatigues of war, and who by their numerous cruises in the gulf of Mexico and about the West-India islands, had become well acquainted with all those coasts, and possessed the most effectual means of annoying the royalists, could not fail to be considered as an acquisition to the new republic.

Having duly obtained their commissions, they in a manner blockaded for a long time all the ports belonging to the royalists, and made numerous captures, which they carried into Barataria. Under this denomination is comprised part of the coast of Louisiana to the west of the mouths of the Mississippi, comprehended between Bastien bay on the cast, and the mouths of the river or bayou la Fourche on the west. Not far from the sea are lakes called the great, the small, and the larger lake of Barataria, communicating with one another by several large bayous with a great number of branches. There is also the island of Barataria, at the extremity of which is a place called the Temple, which denomination it owes to several mounds of shells thrown up there by the Indians, long before the settlement of Louisiana, and which from the great quantity of human bones, are evidently funereal and religious monuments.

The island is formed by the great and the small lakes of Barataria, the bayou Pierrot, and the bayou or river of Ouatchas, more generally known by the name of bayou of Barataria; and finally the same denomination is given to a large basin which extends the whole length of the Cypress swamps, lakes, prairies and bayous behind the plantations on the right bank of the river, three miles above New Orleans, as far as the gulf of Mexico, being about sixty miles in length and thirty in breadth, bounded on the west by the highlands of la Fourche, and on the east by those of the right bank of the Mississippi. These waters disembogue into the gulf by two entrances of the lake or rather the bayou Barataria, between which

lies an island called Grande Terre, six miles in length and from two to three miles in breadth, running parallel with the coast. In the western entrance is the great pass of Barataria, which has from nine to ten feet of water. Within this pass, about two leagues from the open sea, lies the only secure harbour on all that coast, and accordingly this is the harbour frequented by the privateers, so well known by the name of Baratarians.* Social order has indeed to regret that those men, mostly aliens, and cruising under a foreign flag, so audaciously infringed our laws as openly to make sale of their goods on our soil; but what is much more deplorable and equally astonishing is, that the agents of government in this country so long tolerated such violation of our laws, or at least delayed for four years to take effectual measures to put a stop to these lawless practices. It cannot be pretended that the country was destitute of the means necessary to repress these outrages. The troops stationed at New Orleans were sufficient for that purpose, and it cannot be doubted but that a well conducted expedition would have cleared our waters of the privateers, and a proper garrison stationed at the place they made their harbour, would have prevented their return. The species of impunity with which they were apparently indulged, inasmuch as no rigorous measures were resorted to against them, made the contraband trade carried on at Barataria, be considered as tacitly tolerated. In a word, it is a fact no less true than painful for me to assert, that at Grande Terre, the privateers publicly made sale, by

*See plate No. 1, in the Atlas.

From all

auction, of the cargoes of their prizes. parts of Lower Louisiana people resorted to Barataria, without being at all solicitous to conceal the object of their journey. In the streets of New Orleans it was usual for traders to give and receive orders for purchasing goods at Barataria, with as little secrecy as similar orders are given for Philadelphia or NewYork. The most respectable inhabitants of the state, especially those living in the country, were in the habit of purchasing smuggled goods coming from Barataria. The frequent seizures made of those goods, were but an ineffectual remedy of the evil, as the great profit yielded by such parcels as escaped the vigilance of the custom-house officers, indemnified the traders for the loss of what they had paid for the goods seized; their price being always very moderate, by reason of the quantity of prizes brought in, and of the impatience of the captors to turn them into money, and sail on a new cruise. This traffic was at length carried on with such scandalous notoriety, that the agents of government incurred very general and open reprehension, many persons contending that they had interested motives for conniving at such abuses, as smuggling was a source of confiscation, from which they derived considerable benefit.

It has been repeatedly asserted in the public prints throughout the union, that most of those privateers had no commissions, and were really pirates. This I believe to be a calumny, as I am persuaded they all had commissions either from Carthagena or from France, of the validity of which it would seem the