In Le Cap, meanwhile, more extensive reprisals were under way. Leclerc ordered the immediate arrest of all the remaining colonial troops in Le Cap and had 1,000 of them loaded on ships in the harbor. Weighted down with sacks of flour tied to their necks, they were all pushed overboard. During the next few days their bodies were washed ashore along the beaches of the town, where "to the disgust and horror of the town's inhabitants" they rotted, untouched, in the equatorial sun. The cycle of revenge continued: insurgents "executed a number of white hostages within view of the city gates."

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 421