table post-prandial stories, the description of his trip to Barataria, and the princely hospitality of the innocent, persecuted Baratarians. Lafitte kept him through a week of epicurean feasting and conducted him to the mouth of the Mississippi in a superb yawl, laden with boxes of Spanish gold and silver. "What a misnomer," Grymes would exclaim, "to call the most polished gentlemen in the world pirates!" Par parenthèse, there is always added to this the reminiscence, that by the time Mr. Grymes reached the city, running the gauntlet of the hospitality of the planters of the lower coast, and of their card-tables, not a cent of his fee remained to him.
Whether prompted by a hint from his counsel, or by his own confidence in the inflexibility of Governor Clairborne's purpose against him, Lafitte was preparing to change his base and establish his Barataria in some more secure coast, when his good fortune threw another rare opportunity across his path.
On an early September morning of 1814, Barataria was startled by a cannon-shot from the Gulf. Lafitte darting in his four-oared barge through the pass, saw just outside in the Gulf a jaunty brig flying the British colours. A gig, with three officers in uniform, immediately advanced from her side towards him, and the officers introduced themselves as the bearers of important despatches to Mr. Lafitte.
Lafitte, making himself known, invited them ashore, and led the way to his apartments. The description of the entertainment that followed vies with that of Mr. Grymes. It was such as no one but Lafitte knew how to give, and, without irony, no one could afford to give so well as himself,—the choicest wines of Spain and
