Jean Laffite, People Smuggler

If you are living in a country that is in turmoil and your friends and neighbors and family are being slaughtered due to the color of their skin or their ethnic origin, of course you will pay very good money to someone who will help you escape from that situation. It is only natural.

My own family went through such a smuggling as refugees from Poland in 1939. They made it safely to Palestine, and there were many people along the way who helped them to escape, some of whom got paid.

My grandmother, father and grandfather, who escaped Poland in 1939
This picture was taken in 1938, when they were on vacation.

You can read more about my family's escape from Poland, but for which I would never have existed, here:

My Grandfather's Voice

There are some people who say we should help refugees, but we should frown on anyone who profits from smuggling them into any country. That does not make any sense. If not for such smugglers, where would we all be?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/10/07/eu-targets-people-smugglers-mediterranean/73501278/

After the revolution in Saint Domingue or Santo Domingo -- now known as Haiti, Jean Laffite helped French refugees escape from a place where they were likely to be slaughtered and brought them safely to Louisiana. One such refugee was Louise de Lassy who eventually became Edward Livingston's second wife.

An Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates: The Battle Against Britain

It is a strange thing when people sympathize with refugees, but not with those who help them. The refugees themselves have different stories to tell.

Excerpt from Theodosia and the Pirates: The Battle Against Britain

Free trade despite embargoes is the only reason many people exist today. It is because some are brave enough to risk the penalties for saving others that anybody ever gets saved. And in case you think that taking an exorbitant fee for saving somebody else's life at the risk of your own is bad, please consider that the more government battleships you send against such rescuers, the higher the fee will go. There is a free market out there that is as inexorable as the tide. It is as much a part of nature as the price of black market eggs in China  in World War II, when Europeans were interned by the Japanese and forbidden to buy any. Chinese farmers risked death -- and several were shot -- so that Europeans could eat. Keep that in mind when you try your next price fixing ploy.

False Claims About My Books

Some charlatan is trying to sell Our Lady of Kaifeng for over a hundred dollars, claiming it was released in 1900. Marah Fallowfield was born in 1900. I, on the other hand, was not yet in existence and hence could not have released the book back then.

The false claim is right above the blue box -- "released 1900"

Several of my books are being offered at inflated prices, and I can do nothing about that. However, please be advised that the more expensive copies are not being sold by me, and that any bizarre claims about these being antiques or having miraculous healing powers are also not coming from me. It is a free country, so if you would prefer to pay $121.37 for a book that you could buy for $10.99 new from the author, then at least know that you are not buying an antique or a magical time-traveling edition. Neither the book nor the author existed in 1900, and the main character was only just born then.  You could buy ten books for that amount of money. But it's all up to you. I believe in a free market.