But he had a soul which soared high above his
anvil and his bellows, and perceiving an opportunity to take up a very
profitable occupation, he gave up blacksmithing, and with his two
brothers as partners became a superintendent of privateering and a
general manager of semi-legalized piracy. The business opportunity which
came to the watchful and clear-sighted Lafitte may be briefly described.
In the early years of this century the Gulf of Mexico was the scene of
operations of small vessels calling themselves privateers, but in fact
pirates. War had broken out between England and Spain, on the one side,
and France on the other, and consequently the first-named nations were
very glad to commission privateers to prey upon the commerce of France.
There were also privateers who had been sent out by some of the Central
American republics who had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and these,
considering Spanish vessels as their proper booty, were very much
inclined to look upon English vessels in the same light, as the English
and Spanish were allies. And when a few French privateers came also upon
the scene, they helped to make the business of legitimate capture of
merchantmen, during the time of war, a very complicated affair.
But upon one point these privateers, who so often acted as pirates,
because they had not the spare time in which to work out difficult
problems of nationality, were all agreed: when they had loaded their
ships with booty, they must sail to some place where it would be safe to
dispose of it.
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