MonSieur:
... I offer to return to this State many citizens who perhaps have lost to your eyes that sacred title. I offer ... their efforts for the defense of the country.
This point of Louisiana that occupies great importance in the present situation, I offer myself to defend it ... I am the lost sheep who desires to return to the flock ... for you to see through my faults such as they are....
In case, MonSieur Le Gouverneur, your reply should not be favorable in my ardent wishes I declare to you that I leave immediately so not to be held to have cooperated with an invasion.... This cannot fail to take place, and puts me entirely on the judgment of my conscience.
I have the honor to be, MonSieur Le Gouverneur,
Laffite.
Jean Laffite had put loyalty to the United States before profit in this time of peril. But even as Captain Lockyer conferred with Laffite, Claiborne was going forward with plans for a land-sea operation against the pirate stronghold.
After receiving Laffite’s letter, Claiborne called his military advisers into conference. These were Major General Jaques Villere, Commodore Patterson of the U.S. Navy, and Colonel Ross of the regular U.S. Army. The questions they discussed were whether the documents sent by Laffite were genuine and whether the governor should enter into correspondence with Laffite. Villere thought the documents genuine and that the Governor should reply immediately to the Laffite letter. However, Ross and Patterson voted against Villere. The majority favored an attack on the pirate stronghold.
Peculiarly enough, the morning after this meeting at the Governor’s mansion, newspapers carried notices that Pierre Laffite had mysteriously escaped from jail. A notice was posted offering $1,000 reward for his capture.
Eight days after Laffite wrote to Claiborne, the Ross-Patterson expedition set out for Barataria. Three barges were loaded with men and ammunition. It left the levee at New Orleans before dawn and drifted silently downstream with the current. Near the mouth of the river, the barges joined forces with Colonel Ross’ fleet of six gunboats and the schooner Carolina. The pirate hideout on the islands of Grande Terre and Grande Isle was sighted on the early morning of September 16.