In the spring of 1814 at the young age of seventeen Ephraim Bradford deserts from the British Army to begin a new life in America. When his ship to the New World is commandeered by privateers Ephraim becomes an indentured servant to the pirate empire commanded by Captain Jean Lafitte. Soon Ephraim, a merchant by training, begins managing the sale of Lafitte's stolen goods on the streets of New Orleans. The same day that Ephraim lands in America, a thousand miles away in the bustling city of Baltimore, Charlotte Fuller reluctantly marries a swindler twice her age and boards a ship to the Gulf coast. After her foolhardy husband is killed she is left starving and alone on the streets of the Crescent City. Desperate and near death, the only way she can find to survive is by taking a job in a Bourbon Street bordello. Pirates or Patriots follows a young British merchant from the cold fields of Shropshire England to the warm waters of the Mississippi delta and a young farm girl from the cool shores of the Chesapeake Bay to the gritty underbelly of the French Quarter. On a sunny summer afternoon the two fall in love only to have their passions torn apart by their secret lives and the looming Battle of New Orleans.