LAFITAU LAFITTE 101 presided over the chamber as its oldest mem- ber. His only daughter married the eldest son of Marshal Ney. Besides some financial and political essays which have been printed, Laf- fitte left memoires which are still unpublished. Les souvenirs de M. Lqffitte, racontes par lui- meme (3 vols., 1844), written by Oh. Marchal, deserves little credit. There is an elegant biographical sketch of him, by Lom6nie, in the Galerie des contemporains illustres. LAFITAU, Joseph Francois, a French mission- ary, born at Bordeaux in 1670, died there, July 3, 1746. He entered the society of Jesus at an early age, and, after distinguishing him- self by his taste for literature and historical pursuits, was sent as a missionary to Canada in 1712. He was placed at the Iroquois mission at Sault St. Louis, where his room is still shown. Here he devoted himself to the study of the Indian type and character. In 1716 he discovered and identified the ginseng, the Chi- nese estimation of which was known. He re- turned to France the next year, and issued a Memoire presente d son altesse royale Mgr. le due d 1 Orleans, regent de France, sur laprecieuse plante du ging-seng de Tartarie, decounerte en Amerique (Paris, 1718; Montreal, 1858), which led to a trade in ginseng between Amer- ica and China. His studies of Indian life com- pared with that of ancient nations appeared after a visit to Kome in Mceurs des sauvages ameriquains comparees aux maurs des pre- miers temps (2 vols. 4to, 1724). He also wrote Histoire des decouvertes des Portugais dans le nouveau monde (2 vols. 4to, 1733). LAFITTE, Jean, a corsair, privateer, or smug- gler of Louisiana and the gulf of Mexico, born in France, either at St. Malo, Marseilles, or Bordeaux, about 1780, died, according to some accounts, at sea in 1817, according to others, at Silan, Yucatan, in 1826. There is a singular uncertainty with regard to the events of his career. It has been stated that he never was at sea but twice once when he came to America, and again in the voyage on which he was drowned ; and that he fitted out privateers to cruise against Spanish commerce under the flag of Cartagena. Other authorities assert that he began life as mate of a French East Indiaman, but, quarrelling with the captain, left his ship at Mauritius and entered upon a course of dar- ing and successful piracy in the Indian ocean, varied by occasional ventures in the slave trade. After several years he returned to France, dis- posed of his prizes, sailed for the West Indies, and took out a commission as privateer from the newly organized government of Cartagena (afterward New Granada), continuing his dep- redations, not only upon Spanish, but upon Brit- ish commerce. Another account represents him as having begun his career as lieutenant of a French privateer, which was captured by a British man-of-war and taken into an English port, where the officers and crew of the priva- teer were thrown into prison. Here Lafitte was confined for several years under circum- stances of peculiar hardship, after all his com- rades had obtained their release. The resent- ment toward Great Britain engendered by this real or supposed severity is said to have been the motive that inspired his subsequent career. Unable to gratify this resentment in the service of his native country, on account of the suspen- sion of hostilities at the time of his release, he found means of doing so under cover of a pri- vateer's commission (against Spain) obtained from the Cartagenian government. Accord- ing to this account which bears some indica- tions of authenticity in its general features the only acts of Lafitte that could properly be designated as piratical were committed against British vessels. He is said to have gone to New Orleans in 1807; and whatever may have been the facts with regard to his early history, there is no doubt that in 1813-'14 he was at the head of an organized and formidable band of desperadoes, whose headquarters were on the island of Grande Terre, in Barataria bay, some 30 or 40 miles west of the mouth of the Mis- sissippi. It is generally admitted that the op- erations of these adventurers were not restrict- ed within the limits to which their commis- sion would have confined them. Barataria bay afforded a secure retreat for their fleet of small vessels; and their goods were smuggled into New Orleans by being conveyed in boats through an intricate labyrinth of lakes, bayous, and swamps, to a point near the Mississippi river a little above the city. After various ineffectual presentments and prosecutions be- fore the civil tribunals, an expedition was des- patched against the Baratarians in 1814, under the command of Commodore Patterson. The settlement on Grande Terre was captured, with all the vessels that happened to be in port at the time ; but Lafitte and his comrades made their escape among the swamps and bayous of the interior, from which they returned to the same rendezvous and resumed operations, as soon as Com. Patterson's forces had retired. About the same time the British, then matur- ing their plans for a descent upon the southern coast of the United States, made overtures to Lafitte for the purpose of securing his coopera- tion in that enterprise. A brig of war was despatched to Barataria, her commander bear- ing a letter from Commodore Percy, command- ing the British naval forces in the gulf, and one from Col. Nichols, then in command of the land forces on the coast of Florida, offering Lafitte $30,000 and the command of a fine ship, on condition of obtaining his services in conducting the contemplated expedition to New Orleans and in distributing a certain proclamation to the inhabitants of Louisiana. Lafitte dissembled with the British officer (Capt. Lockyer, of the Sophia) who was the bearer of these tempting proposals, and asked for time to consider them. Meantime he im- mediately wrote to Gov. Claiborne of Loui- siana, enclosing the documents that had been handed him by Capt. Lockyer, informing the
