Claiborne appealed to the new state legislature, citing the lost revenues due to the smuggling. He requested approval to raise a militia company to "disperse those desperate men on Lake Barataria whose piracies have rendered our shores a terror to neutral flags". The legislature appointed a committee to study the matter but, as most of their constituents benefitted by the smuggling, they never authorized the militia. A grand jury indicted Pierre Lafitte after hearing testimony against him by one of the city's leading merchants. Lafitte was arrested, tried, convicted and jailed on charges of "having knowingly and wittingly aided and assisted, procured, commanded, counselled, and advised" persons to commit acts of piracy".