Had the British government sent Nicholls to Pensacola expressly to divert Jackson’s attention from New Orleans, he could not have used his means more successfully for his purpose. Jackson at Mobile, some sixty miles away, learned within forty-eight hours what Nicholls was doing at Pensacola, and wrote instantly, August 27, to Governor Blount of Tennessee,[450] calling out the whole quota of Tennessee militia, twenty-five hundred men, who were to march instantly to Mobile. “It is currently reported in Pensacola,” he added, “that the Emperor of Russia has offered his Britannic Majesty fifty thousand of his best troops for the conquest of Louisiana, and that this territory will fall a prey to the enemy before the expiration of one month.” During the next three months Nicholls with a mere handful of men distracted Jackson’s whole attention. From Pensacola, August 29, Nicholls issued a proclamation calling on the natives of Louisiana to assist him “in liberating from a faithless, imbecile government” their paternal soil.[451] A few days afterward, September 3, a British sloop-of-war, the “Sophie,” appeared at Barataria, forty miles south of New Orleans. There for several years smugglers and pirates had established a station, to the scandal of society and with its connivance.[452] Three Frenchmen, the brothers Laffite,--Jean, Pierre, and Dominique,--ruled over this community, and plundered impartially the commerce of England and Spain, while defying the laws of the United States and the power of the national government.[453] The British sloop-of-war brought to Jean Laffite a letter from Major Nicholls asking him and his men, with their vessels, to enter into British service, under penalty of destruction to their establishment.[454] Laffite, preferring to make terms with the United States, and knowing that the authorities at New Orleans were about to break up his establishment in any case, sent to Governor Claiborne the letters he received from Captain Lockyer of the “Sophie,” and offered his services to defend Barataria. Nothing in these demonstrations suggested a direct attack on New Orleans. Nicholls constantly gave out that he meant to attack Mobile, and from there “push for New Orleans;”[455] but his force was wholly inadequate, and his rank was much too low, to warrant the belief that he intended a serious campaign. Yet such noisy and insulting conduct was adapted to irritate a man of Jackson’s temper, and to keep his attention fixed on Mobile and Pensacola. Nicholls even undertook to annoy Jackson in his headquarters.