Having fired this verbal blunderbuss, Major Nicholls sent a sloop-of-war to enlist the support of Jean and Pierre Lafitte, enterprising brothers who maintained on Barataria Bay in the Gulf, some forty miles south of New Orleans, a most lucrative resort for pirates and slave traders. There they defied the law and the devil, trafficking in spoils filched from honest merchantmen whose crews had walked the plank. Pierre Lafitte was a very proper figure of a pirate himself, true to the best traditions of his calling. But withal he displayed certain gallantry to atone for his villainies, for he spurned British gold and persuasions and offered his sword and his men to defend New Orleans as one faithful to the American cause. If it was the purpose of Nicholls to divert Jackson's attention from New Orleans which was to be the objective of the British expedition preparing at Jamaica, he succeeded admirably; but in deciding to attack Jackson's forces at Mobile, he committed a grievous error. The worthy Nicholls failed to realize that he had caught a Tartar in General Jackson--"Old Hickory," the sinewy backwoodsman who would sooner fight than eat and who was feared more than the enemy by his own men. As might have been expected, the garrison of one hundred and sixty soldiers who held Fort Bowyer, which dominated the harbor of Mobile, solemnly swore among themselves that they would never surrender until the ramparts were demolished over their heads and no more than a corporal's guard survived. This was Andrew Jackson's way. Four British ships, with a total strength of seventy-eight guns, sailed into Mobile Bay on the 15th of September and formed in line of battle, easily confident of smashing Fort Bowyer with its twenty guns, while the landing force of marines and Indians took position behind the sand dunes and awaited the signal. The affair lasted no more than an hour. The American gunnery overwhelmed the British squadron. The _Hermes_ sloop-of-war was forced to cut her cable and drifted under a raking fire until she ran aground and was blown up. The _Sophie_ withdrew after losing many of her seamen, and the two other ships followed her to sea after delaying to pick up the marines and Indians who merely looked on. Daybreak saw the squadron spreading topsails to return to Pensacola.