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.

So, in course of time, the bay of Barrataria, about forty miles south of New Orleans and very well situated for an illegal settlement, was chosen as a privateers' port, and a large and flourishing colony soon grew up at the head of the bay, to which came privateers of every nationality to dispose of their cargoes.
Of course there was no one in the comparatively desolate country about Barrataria who could buy the valuable goods which were brought into that port, but the great object of the owners of this merchandise was to smuggle it up to New Orleans and dispose of it.

But there could be no legitimate traffic of this sort, for the United States at the very beginning of the century was at peace with England, France, and Spain, and therefore could not receive into any of her ports, goods which had been captured from the ships of these nations.

Consequently the plunder of the privateering pirates of Barrataria was brought up to New Orleans in all sorts of secret and underhand fashions, and sold to merchants in that city, without the custom house having anything to do with the importations.
Now this was great business; Jean Lafitte had a great business mind, and therefore it was not long after his arrival at Barrataria before he was the head man in the colony, and director-in-chief of all its operations.
Thus, by becoming a prominent figure in a piratical circle, he came to be considered a pirate, and as such came down to us in the pages of history.
But, in fact, Lafitte never committed an act of piracy in his life; he was a blacksmith, and knew no more about sailing a ship or even the smallest kind of a boat than he knew about the proper construction of a sonnet.

He did not even try, like the celebrated Bonnet, to find other people who would navigate a vessel for him, for he had no taste for the ocean wave, and all that he had to do he did upon firm, dry land.