The Bay of Bengal is largely undefended…
1798 CE
The British naval commander, Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier, has taken most of his ships westwards to the Red Sea to participate in opposition to Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt, leaving only a single frigate to protect trade shipping in the region.
This ship is the forty-gun HMS Sybille, a large, powerful ship captured from the French at the Battle of Mykonos in 1794.
Weighing more than one thousand tons bm and with a maindeck battery of twenty-eight eighteen-pounder long guns supplemented by six nine-pounder long guns and fourteen thirty-two-pounder cannonades, Sybille is a formidable ship, but significantly weaker than the massive Forte.
Many of Sybille's crew had fallen ill while the ship had been stationed at Calcutta, leaving her undermanned.
To compensate, the crew has been augmented by a detachment from the frigate HMS Fox and soldiers from the Scotch Brigade.
In command is Captain Edward Cooke, who had distinguished himself early in the war by negotiating the surrender of the French Mediterranean port city of Toulon in 1793.
This action, under threat of execution by the Republican faction in the city, had led to the Siege of Toulon and the destruction of almost half of the French Mediterranean Fleet.
In January 1798 Cooke and Sybille had participated in the successful Raid on Manila.
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