42 University of Califoria Publications i History

maker (IAngara) and one United States map maker (Sibley) who
put the limits at the Sabine and the Arroyo Hondo, respectively,
totally disregarding French claims to rights in Texas."
 Spain was also studying the problem, and, pursuant to a Royal
 Order of May 20, 1805, Father Melchor de Talamantes was in-
 structed to prepare a treatise on the Louisiana-Texas boundary.
 After Talamantes' arrest for complicity in a revolutionary plot,
 the work was entrusted to Father Jos6 Antonio Pichardo." This
 industrious friar cleric completed in 1812 an argumentative tract
 of 5,127 sheets (fojas). It supported the Spanish claims. A copy
 reached Spain four years later and appears to have been used in
 the ministry of state during the negotiation of the Adams-Onis
 Treaty."
 Along the disputed frontier line during the first two decades of
 the century flourished various illegal or revolutionary activities
 to which such a heterogeneous population was prone. Throughout
 the period of maritime uncertainties attendant upon the War of
 1812 and the Spanish American revolutions, pirates on Barataria
 Lake, just west of the mouth of the Mississippi, had been preying
 upon commerce of all kinds. They ran their contraband into New
 Orleans, where they sold it, more or less openly, at prices which
 were lower than could be asked by importers who bought their
 goods and paid customs duty on them." The chief pirates were two
 Frenchmen who had begun life in America as immigrant black-
 smiths in New Orleans, Jean and Pierre Lafltte. Louisiana authori-
 ties made halfhearted efforts to quell them. But, sailing under
 letters of marque issued by France or by the republic of Venezuela,
 they continued to seize ships of all nations, especially those of
 Spain. After serving in the army which defended New Orleans
 under Jackson, they went back to privateering, making their head-
 quarters on Galveston Island.
 Early among the land threats to the border were the horse-
 trading ventures of Philip Nolan. He made journeys into Texas
 during the years from 1797 to 1801, when he was finally captured
 and killed by Spaniards. As a prot6g6 of Wilkinson, it appears
 that he probably had other motives than those of a horse trader.
 Following the years when the frontier was being fortified on
 both sides, and after the disruption of the Burr plot, came the
 beginning of Mexico's revolt from Spain, which brought havoc to