ACT TWO

Opening Scene: Cruising on the NYS Falcon in company with the NYS Privateer Montgomery captained by William Rogers during June 1776. Chris and Derik have arranged to have their trusted assistants/apprentices run their offices while they are away for a few months this summer.

Scene One: Saturday June 22nd Capturing the “5 Gentlemen” a fat merchant full of British aristocratic opportunists out from London. They thought they would get there early for the spoils of war for when the British fleet under Admiral Howe arrives. In their haste they seemed to have out sailed the British Fleet to New York.

Thus the group learns of the approach of the British Fleet.

They put into Southampton dock to pass on their information to their Continental Spy contacts.

Scene Three: June 28^th Instructed to sail out and shadow the British Fleet, the NYS Falcon sights the invasion fleet off Orient point. 48 ships including Ship of the line.

Chased by the HMS Rose, the 20 gun 6^th rate commanded by the Infamous Post Captain James Wallace, Scourge of the Long Island Sound, the most hated man in Rhode Island and one of the most effective and “Elitist, Loyal Americans” in service of the British Royal Navy.

Sightings occur about 8am. The Falcon sees the British Fleet first. The Rose Begins pursuit. After a hot chase the Falcon is captured by use of the “Arcane” manipulation of the wind by Wallace’s “medical” officer.

Scene Four:  after a rough “interview” with Captain Wallace, they are thrown in the ship’s bilge, “… the brig is too good for these rebel scum…”

Scene Five:  The bilge has good acoustics to the captain’s day cabin, and they hear all of Wallace’s conversations with his “Doctor”. Shortly after the officers are having dinner with Wallace, an American Sailor impressed into service on the HMS Rose helps them escape the bilge and reach the shore.

Scene Six: Late evening June 28^th the group make it to Setauket and ride into NYC to pass on the information to General Washington who is now in in Manhattan.

Scene Seven: Tuesday afternoon of July 9^th in Bowling Green park NYC, the group is part of a crowd that listens to the reading of the Declaration of Independence which was signed last Thursday in

 Philadelphia. The city has been on edge since the first of the British arrived June 29^th with the first 48 ships of General William Howe’s invasion fleet. 10,000 British soldiers are now on Staten Island.

After the document is read the crowd cheers and a mob of American soldiers and citizens topple the equestrian statue of King George.

The group is approached by a man who introduces himself as Nathan Hale, a member of the “of Knowlton's Rangers, the first organized intelligence service organization of the United States of America, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton. He wants the group to sneak back aboard the HMS Rose and steal the captain’s logbook and the “Doctor’s Spell Book”. The HMS Rose is anchored in the East River with the 44gun HMS Phoenix. Also he wants you to find what Captain James Wallace and his “Doctor” were looking.

Scene Eight: The group sneak onto the HMS Rose only to find out that she has a new captain; Parker.  They swim over to the HMS Phoenix. Wallace isn’t there eighter, BUT they discover the British officers John and George Folliott are using the captain’s day cabin to counterfeit Continental $30 bills. They learn that Captain James Wallace was promoted to captain of the 50gun HMS Experiment, and he transferred his Doctor with him. The HMS had sailed back up the Long Island Sound toward Setauket.

Scene Nine: Morning of Wednesday July 10^th the group returns to NYC and reports the counterfeiting going on the Phoenix. The HMS Rose, HMS Phoenix and HMS Experiment, shell NYC on the Night of July 12^th. This time the group is assigned to the 12gun USS Providence under command of Lt John Paul Jones to shadow the Experiment. They are given a new weapon by the Knowlton rangers, a rocket developed by Knox & Revere based on a Southern Asian design.

Scene Ten: Saturday, July 13^th after a daylong game of cat and mouse through long Island Sound, the USS Providence loses sight of the HMS Experiment off the by Plum Island. The ship mysteriously disappears into a fog bank.

Scene Eleven: Then that evening, as Jones is about to head back to New York when they observe two naval frigates anchored off the far cove of Plum Island.

It’s the Experiment and the 28gun HMS Cerberus. They have a shore party on the Island by the looks of it with 2 boats ashore. Jones has a plan. He will distract the two British Frigates, while the group slip ashore using the USS Providence’s long boat and see what they are up to. The team should be able to escape to Long Island in the Long Boat while the USS Providence should be able to lose the two British frigates in the darkness. The plan works and the group gets ashore unnoticed while the two British Navy frigates make sail to chase the American Sloop of war off into the twilight.

Scene Twelve: The group observes the “Doctor” and 20 British sailors and marines. The “Doctor” was had the sailors dig up a chest in the dunes just outside on the woods inland from the cove. With the Franklyn Spy Glass, they can observe from the hill on the top of the island that it is full of Doubloons and some other items they can’t quite make out in the fading light of evening. The Doubloons are like the one given to Bruce last month in Setauket. They use the Rocket from the other side of the Island, (it’s an indirect weapon with a trajectory like a mortar, but much more accurate).

Scene Thirteen: The group observes The British run down to the beach for their boats, some appear to have been injured but not enough to stop them from running. The group descends on the chest. They snatch it up the “Doctor’s” spell book and wrapped in some sail cloth is a strange set of Cutlasses, or at least Cutlass like swords. They are very ornate with many squid like creatures in the hilts, guards and blades. They know they only have so much time before the British recover and return. The chest is too heavy to carry, but they take a few doubloons, swords and the “Spell Book” and run for their own boat. The British regroup and return, and from the shouting begin to search the island for them. They finally see the group from the beach as they are sailing off. The British fire a few boarding muskets (musket carbines) and pistols at them as the group they sail off into the darkness.

          They sail into Setauket the next day and take a couch into NYC and report into Nathan Hale at the Trinity Church that evening.