In mid-1803 two regiments of Polish troops disembarked in the town of Tiburon; ten days later more than half were dead of fever. “They fell down as they walked,” a planter noted, “the blood rushing out of their nostrils, mouths, eyes.” By late 1802, “an average of one hundred men a day died.” The disease killed the entire crew of a Swedish ship harbored in Le Cap, with the single exception of a young cabin boy, and the empty ship was put up for sale.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 412