But we do not forget, Henry, that our ancestor, no homebody at best, has been struck a severe blow to the head (the lieutenant of that gig has happily reported him killed; John Skinner and Dr. Beanes are not sorry to hear it; but Francis Key, less certain that the fellow was a turncoat, dutifully reports the news to “Mrs. Cook, Castines Hundred, Canada,” and somehow the letter reaches her despite the war and the vague address). Even as he closes this letter, two years later, Andrew is subject to spells of giddiness, occasional blackouts, from each of which he awakes momentarily believing himself to be on Bloodsworth Island, 36 years old, and the War of 1812 not yet begun. Though he never loses sight of his larger end—“the rectification, in [his] life’s 2nd cycle, of its 1st”—his conception of means, never very consistent, grows more and more attenuated. We remind ourselves that he is completing this letter in France, from Bellerophon, Napoleon a prisoner on board, himself about to set out on an urgent errand in that connection, and yet nowhere in these pages explains how he got there, and what business it is of his to get the fallen emperor a passport to America! No wonder Andrée was skeptical, if she read these lettres posthumes at all.
There was also talk at Mr. Patterson’s of the Baratarians [Andrew concludes his letter glibly], a band of freebooters led by the brothers Lafitte, of whom the younger, Jean, had been a captain with Napoleon. When the British in the Gulf solicited their services against New Orleans, Jean Lafitte sent their letters to his friend (and mine) Jean Blanque in the Louisiana legislature, hoping to raise his stock in New Orleans, where his brother Pierre had been jail’d as a pirate. But the Governor’s Council declared the letters forgeries, sent a Navy force to destroy Barataria, and jail’d Lafitte’s band. Thot I: Here is a man after my own heart, who might serve as a go-between to mislead both Admiral Cochrane & General Jackson into avoiding a disastrous battle. Thus I determin’d to seek out this Jean Lafitte at once, and solicit him to this end, before rejoining you & our children.
Incredibly, Henry, here his letter ends!
But for its postscript. In this mission [he writes under his signature], I both succeeded and fail’d. I did not prevent the bloodiest battle of the war (fought after the Peace had been sign’d in December) & the most decisive of American victories on land. But in Jean Lafitte, I who have never known a father found a true brother, with whom I fought on the American side in that battle, and whom one day I hope to include in the happiest of all reunions, yours & mine!
Defeated again, Admiral Cochrane seizes Fort Bowyer in Mobile Bay as a sort of consolation prize, and Andrew (inexplicably back with the fleet again) mails his first “posthumous letter.” Cochrane is still hopeful of a fresh expedition in the Chesapeake come spring, to destroy Baltimore, perhaps Washington again as well. He and Admiral Cockburn (who, operating off Georgia for the winter, has been spared the New Orleans fiasco) will mend their differences, go on to greater glory! News of the peace treaty thwarts that plan. Leaving Rear Admiral Malcolm the disagreeable chore of disposing of the blacks and Indians recruited to their cause, Cochrane retires to England to litigate with Cockburn over prize money.
The Ghent Treaty is bad news for Indians. Sobered by their losses at Baltimore and Plattsburgh, by rising marine insurance rates and falling export trade, by the uncertain peace in Europe and the rallying even of dissident New Englanders to Key’s new national song, the British have abandoned, on no less grave advice than Wellington’s own, their demand for the Great Lakes, half of Maine, and the rest — including the Indian state. There seems nothing now to prevent American expansion right across the Mississippi to the Pacific!
Unless (here the postscript closes)…
He it was [Jean Lafitte] who re-excited my interest in Napoleon, many of whose followers had fled to Louisiana after his 1st abdication. As Emperor of the French, Bonaparte was the curse of Europe. But suppose (as Jean was fond of supposing, whose loyalty was less to America than to France & freebootery) a new Napoleon were to govern a French-American territory from the Mississippi to the Rio Grande? Lafitte wisht to rescue the man from Elba & fetch him to New Orleans or Galvez-Town. I scoft at that idea — till Napoleon himself show’d me in March of 1815 it could be done, by escaping from that island & returning to France for his 100 Days. The news reacht us at sea, where (with other activities) Jean was planning a reconnaissance of Elba. He shrugg’d & return’d to Galvez-Town to try a 2nd Barataria, as his hero was trying a 2nd Empire in Europe. But I went on, by another vessel, with another plan in mind, the likelihood of which, events have conspired extraordinarily to advance. But that, dear wife, must await another letter!
As, dear son, it must likewise with us. A week has passed since this commenced! Americans on the moon! Senator Kennedy disgraced! Where are you?
Your father
ABC/ss
cc: JB
A: Jerome Bray to the Author. The Gadfly Illuminations.
Jerome Bonaparte Bray
General Delivery
Lily Dale, N.Y. 14752
7/8/69
“John Barth,” “Author”
Dept. English, Annex 2
State Univ. of N.Y. at Buffalo
Buffalo, N.Y. 14214
“Dear” “Sir”:
Aha ha REStop You have taken the bait stepped into our parlor; there’s punctuation for you: your letter to us of 7/6 received! Hee RESET Gotcha! Hum!
Mars stationary in Right Ascension. Moon and Saturn in conjunction. Stock market hit by heavy losses. 1st U.S. troops head home from Viet Nam. Astromonkey dies after retrieval.
“Sir”: (Oh that’s good, LILYVAC, a hit, a palpable RESET Your letter of July 6, 6th Sunday after Pentecost, 555 die in weekend traffic accidents — same # as height in feet of Washington Monument, Washington, 4.3. Oh that’s sly LILYVAC thats RESET Dont forget punctuation. ¶Right. Resume.
In the lull between the end of our Spring Work Period (and of Year 3, a.k.a. T, a.k.a. V of our 5-Year Plan) and the Mating Season which will commence Year 4 (a.k.a. E etc.); in the afterglow of the “Gadfly (whoops) Illuminations” of July 4; in the pause at the Phi-point 6 1 8 (e.g. ⅗ths, ⅝ths, 54/88ths) — your letter reaches us proposing that we participate in your fiction! Oh ha phi on you! (Tell him, LIL.)
Had that missive hit but a week before, when in despair at our scrambled NOTES we wandered like downed Bellerophon devouring our own soul food hee it might have done its fatal work, last knife in bleeding Caesar. Keyless in the presence of our enemies, we could not unlock the leafy anagram; betrayed by Margana y Flea whoops advised by Bea Golden to booger off, we wondered why our parents never gave us a buzz, and whether LILYVAC had their signals crossed. But ha you missed, good old P.O., your letter finds us flying like a butterfloat, being like a sting (O LIL); in a word we’ve been reset. Repeat. We said in a word we’ve been RESET Gotcha Hum.
In reply to yours of the 6th. (Show him, LIL.)
Let’s get things straight. Attacomputer. We did indeed spend the 1st ½ of 1969 (enough) believing that you and yours had swatted us for keeps; that you had somehow wooed Merope Bernstein into the anti-Bonaparty (stop). Even that LILYVAC’s 1st trial printout of the Revolutionary Novel NOTES must be either a monstrous ciphered anagram beyond anyone’s unscrabbling or a mere dumb jumble of numbers. We had thought M.B. to be our destined mate, right repository of our seed; had expected this season to preserve our line in her like a blank in amber, forever, stop. Then we reckoned her our betrayer: no Bea she, not even a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, play that on your acrostical Notarikon, but our devourer!