Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/136

 sippi or some inlet of the Gulf—into Barataria Lake, into Bayou Lafourche, or into Bayou Teche. There it was vain to follow him, for the intricacies of these passages were known only to his men or to the dwellers along their shores, who were in sympathy with him.

When the British descended upon New Orleans in the autumn of 1813, they offered Jean Lafitte a captain's commission in the British naval service, thirty thousand dollars in money, a full pardon for past offenses and rewards in money and lands for his followers if he would join them in making war on the Americans. He could easily have done so. The French people of Louisiana had no keen loyalty for the Stars and Stripes at that time. As Lafitte went they might have gone. The British knew this, and made their bait a rich one.

But Lafitte, although Claiborne's price was on his head, and his brother Pierre in prison in New Orleans, re-