Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/165

 early age, is said to have served in Germany and took some part against the rebels of 1745 in Scotland. In 1754 he sailed for India with the 39th regiment, then known as Adlercron's from its colonel's name, which was the first English regiment ever sent to India, and received in consequence the famous motto ‘Primus in Indis.’ In the ‘Army List’ of 1755 it appears that he was gazetted a captain in the 39th on 18 June 1755, and there is no doubt that he was in India in the following year, when his regiment formed part of the expedition sent to Bengal from Madras in that year to punish Surajah Dowlah for the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ atrocity. He was present at the capture of Calcutta, where he hoisted the English colours on Fort William, and of Chandernagore, and then occupied Katwa, from which place Colonel Clive advanced against Surajah Dowlah with 750 European soldiers from the 39th regiment and the French prisoners taken at Chandernagore, one hundred artillerymen, sixty sailors, 2,100 sepoys, and seven 6-pounders. When he came face to face with Surajah Dowlah's army, Colonel Clive called his famous council of war, consisting of twenty European officers. Clive first gave his opinion against immediate action, and was supported by Major Kilpatrick, commanding the company's troops, and Major Archibald Grant, commanding the 39th, and by the majority of the officers present. In opposition to this weight of opinion, Captain Eyre Coote—who is everywhere called major, though there is no evidence that he held that local rank, and he certainly had not been gazetted to it—argued that it was better to fight at once. The men were in high spirits, and any delay would give time for Law to arrive with his Frenchmen to the assistance of Surajah Dowlah, to whom their French prisoners of war would at once desert. After the council Clive retired for a time to think, and on his return he showed that Coote's arguments had convinced him, for he gave orders to prepare for battle. In the victory of Plassey Coote himself played a great part, for he commanded the 3rd division in the field, and was afterwards sent against M. Law. His services were not forgotten by Clive, and it was upon his recommendation that Coote was gazetted on 20 Jan. 1759 lieutenant-colonel commandant of a new regiment, which was numbered the 84th, specially raised in England for service in India.

This new battalion he joined at Madras in October 1759, when, as senior officer, he assumed the command of all the troops in the Madras presidency. The first news he heard was that the Comte de Lally was threatening the important fortress of Trichinopoly with a powerful army, and he at once marched south from Madras with seventeen hundred English soldiers and three thousand sepoys to make a diversion. He moved with great rapidity and took the important town of Wandewash on 30 Nov. 1759 after a three days' siege, and immediately afterwards reduced the fort of Carangooly. His movements had their intended effect, and Lally, abandoning his attack on Trichinopoly, came against the small English army at the head of 2,200 Europeans and 10,300 sepoys, and at once besieged it in Wandewash. Coote closely watched the besiegers, and on 22 Jan. 1760 he suddenly burst out of the town, and in spite of the disparity in numbers he utterly defeated the French in their entrenchments. This great victory sealed the downfall of the French in India. It is second only to Plassey in its importance, and even the Comte de Bussy, who was taken prisoner, and had been second in command to Lally, expressed his admiration for Coote's courage and admirable generalship. The French never again made head in India; Lally's prestige was gone, and Coote, after taking Arcot, prepared to besiege Pondicherry, the last refuge of the defeated general. At this moment Major the Hon. William Monson arrived at Madras with a commission to take command of the forces in the Madras presidency, and with directions for Coote to proceed with his regiment to Bengal. The Madras council, however, protested against this measure, and Monson declared that he could not besiege Pondicherry without the 84th, when Coote, with admirable self-abnegation, allowed his regiment to serve under Monson, and remained himself at Madras. Monson, however, soon fell ill, and on 20 Sept. 1760 Coote assumed the command of the investing army, while Admiral Stevens blockaded Pondicherry at sea. Owing to the rains Coote could not undertake regular siege operations, but the garrison of the blockaded city was soon reduced to the extremity of famine. On 1 Jan. 1761 a tremendous storm blew the English fleet to the northward, and Lally hoped for succour from M. Raymond at Pulicat, but Admiral Stevens, by great exertions, got back in four days before assistance arrived, and Lally was forced to surrender to Coote, who took fourteen hundred prisoners and immense booty. This conquest completed the destruction of the French power in India, and in 1762 Coote returned to England. He purchased the fine estate of West Park in Hampshire, and was presented with a diamond-hilted sword worth 700l. by the directors of the East India Company. He was also promoted colonel on 4 April 1765 and elected M.P. for Leicester