The popular delusion that pirates found nothing better to do with their plunder than to bury it, like so many thrifty depositors in savings banks, clashes with what is known of the habits and temperaments of many of the most industrious rovers under the black flag. By way of a concluding survey of the matter, let us briefly examine the careers of divers pirates of sorts and try to ascertain what they did with their gold and whether it be plausible to assume that they had any of it left to bury. Of course, romance and legend are up in arms at the presumption that any well-regulated and orthodox pirate omitted the business with the pick and shovel and the chart with the significant crosses and compass bearings, but the prosaic facts of history are due to have their innings. For example, there was Jean Lafitte who amassed great riches in the pursuit of his profession and whose memory has inspired innumerable treasure-seeking expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico and along the coast of Central America. After ravaging the commerce of the East India Company in the waters of the Far East, he set up his headquarters on an island among the bayous and cypress swamps of that desolate region below New Orleans that is known as Barrataria. A deep-water pass ran to the open sea, only two leagues distant, and on the shores of the sheltered harbor of Grand Terre, Lafitte organized the activities of a large number of pirates and smugglers and formed a flourishing colony; a corporation, in its way, for disposing of the merchandise filched from honest shipping. These marauders posed as privateers, and some of them had French and other commissions for sailing against the Spanish, but there was a great deal of laxity in such trifles as living up to the letter of the law. At Grand Terre, Lafitte and his people sold the cargoes of their prizes by public auction, and from all parts of lower Louisiana bargain-hunters flocked to Barrataria to deal in this tempting traffic. The goods thus purchased were smuggled into New Orleans and other nearby ports, and Lafitte's piratical enterprises became so notorious that the government of the United States sent an expedition against him in 1814, commanded by Commodore Patterson. At Grand Terre he found a settlement so great in force and numbers as to constitute a small kingdom ruled by Lafitte. The commodore described the encounter in a letter to the Secretary of War, and said in part: