Eyre Coote

“ Sir Eyre Coote handed over, to its commandant, almost the whole of the provisions carried by the army, and, having thus supplied the garrison with sufficient food for six weeks, marched back to Madras, his troops suffering greatly from famine on the way.
"Nothing took place during the winter, except that Sir Eyre Coote again advanced and revictualled Vellore. In March a French fleet arrived off the coast, landed a force of three thousand men to assist Hyder, and informed him that a much larger division was on its way. ”

“ For a time everything went like clockwork. Sir Eyre Coote, who commanded the expedition, summoned the French commander at Ostend to surrender, as a feint, to make him believe the town was the object of attack. Then having received a high-flown reply, and seen all the French troops drawn into Ostend, he quietly landed his men on the opposite side of the river, and blew up the lock-gates with the greatest success. By 11 A.M. Coote was back on the beach and anxious to re-embark, having accomplished his object with the trifling loss of five men killed and wounded. ”

“ General Coote’s army did not exceed 8000 men, of which the 73d was the only British regiment. The force under Hyder Ali consisted of 25 battalions of infantry, 400 Europeans, between 40,000 and 50,000 horse, and above 100,000 matchlock men, peons, and polygars, with 47 pieces of cannon. Notwithstanding this immense disparity of force, Sir Eyre Coote determined to attack Hyder, and, accordingly, drew up his army in two lines, the first commanded by Major-general Hector Munro, and the second by Major-general James Stewart. ”

“ This expedition, however, was stopped by the peace of Amiens, and Coote returned to England, and in 1802 he was elected M.P. for Queen's County, in which he possessed large property inherited from the famous Sir Eyre Coote. He had already represented, in the Irish House of Commons, Ballynakill (1790–97) and Maryborough (1797–1800) . He did not sit long in the House of Commons at this time, for in 1805 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and appointed lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica. ”

“ Sir Eyre Coote quickly restored its wonted lustre to the British arms by a series of brilliant efforts, during 1781, that enabled him, after the destruction of Hyder's naval force at Calicut and Mangalore, by Sir Edward Hughes, to send an adequate detachment for the reduction of Negapatam, which was committed to Sir Hector Monro, who assumed the command of the troops in the Tanjore Country, and who was enjoined to co-operate in the attempt with Admiral Hughes and his squadron. ”

“ Colonel Brereton attempted to take Wandewash, but failed; and it remained for Colonel Eyre Coote to defeat Lally. Coote arrived at Madras on the 27th of October, and, under his direction, Brereton succeeded in taking Wandewash on the last of November. To recover this place, Lally marched with all his force, supported by Bussy, but sustained a signal defeat on the 22nd of January, 1760. Arcot, Trincomalee, and other places fell rapidly into the hands of Colonel Coote. The French called in to their aid the Nabob of Mysore, Hyder Ali, but to little purpose. ”

“ For the first three months of the year 1782, the army of Lieut.-General Sir Eyre Coote was kept in a state of inactivity at St. Thomas’s Mount, where it would appear the Government of the presidency, apprehensive for its own safety, had detained this force, while a judicious movement to Porto Novo might have prevented the junction of the forces under Tippoo Saib with the strong reinforcement of French troops that had arrived from Europe on board the fleet of Admiral Suffrein, or at all events have prevented the loss of Permacoil and Cuddalore. ”

“ In the interval between Eyre Coote's victory at Wandewash in January, 1760, and the Battle of Buxar in October, 1764, our troops in India had been continuously at war; yet the colours even of those regiments which still survive, and which were then in the service of the Company, bear no record of the many stubborn fights, the [64] by no means inglorious victories achieved over our gallant foes. In the South, the Government of Madras had been carrying on campaign after campaign against the trained troops of France and the scarcely less formidable army of Mysore. ”

“ A great loss was experienced at this time in the death of Sir Eyre Coote at Madras, on 27th April, three days after his return to resume command of the operations. After this nothing was done till June, when an ineffective attack was made on Cuddalore by Major General Stuart. The French were on the point of striking a counter blow which would probably have proved successful, when the announcement of peace in Europe changed the complexion of affairs. The French force with Tippoo was withdrawn, but otherwise the war continued. At this point the Mahrattas intervened. ”

“ The Governor and Council of the British India Company at Madras having heard that Lally had sent a detachment of his forces southward and threatened Trinchinopoli, determined that Colonel Eyre Coote, who had recently arrived in the East, should take the field and drive it back.
The French officers had been fortunate in acquiring the favour of many of the Indian chiefs. Thus in 1755 the King of Travancore employed M. de Launay to discipline 10,000 Naires of Malabar in the mode of the European infantry ”

“ With a view to draw his opponents from so inaccessible a country, Hyder Ali proceeded to the attack of Tripassoor, and on the 20th November Sir Eyre Coote retired out of the Pollamo, through the Naggary Pass, which obliged the enemy to raise the siege of Tripassoor and retire on Arcot. The campaign closed with the recapture of Chittoor by the enemy. On the 2nd December, the monsoon having set in, the army broke up its camp on the Koilatoor Plain, and the different corps marched into cantonments in the neighbourhood of Madras. ”

“ Their arrival gave promise that future [33] successes in the field should not be so barren in results as had frequently been the case in the past. In their dispatch of 31st October 1782, the Madras Government, showing their satisfaction at the arrival of the 23rd Light Dragoons, quote Sir Eyre Coote’s opinion that “a body of cavalry would have procured him the most solid and decisive advantages over the enemy” in the earlier operations.
The regiment landed with a strength of 360 privates fit for duty, and, by all accounts, appears to have been a splendid lot of men. ”

“ A French fleet with French troops was daily expected, and it appeared almost certain that the British power would be extinguished in Madras, if not in the whole of Hindostan. It was saved by the energy of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who, by extraordinary efforts, collected a large body of Sepoys and a few Europeans in Bengal, and sent them with great rapidity to Madras, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, who had proved himself twenty years before scarcely second in military genius to Clive himself. ”

“ Coorg (173) , an inland high-lying province, about the size of Kent, on the eastern slope of the W. Ghâts, on the SW. border of Mysore, under the Indian Government; it is covered with forests, infested with wild animals; the natives, a fine race, are distinguished for their loyalty to the British.
Coote, Sir Eyre, a general, born in co. Limerick, Ireland; distinguished himself at Plassey; gained victories over the French in India; afterwards routed Hyder Ali at Porto Novo; died at Madras (1726-1783) .
Cope, Charles West, a painter, born at Leeds ”

“ I tell you, Coote never took the thing.”
“You were here in the shop, of course, and saw him?” said the tradesman.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Dick; “you know that as well as I do.”
“Coote,” said Heathcote, feeling it his turn to back up—“Coote’s a gentleman; not a thief.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr Webster. “He’s sure he’s not both?”
“I’m positive,” said Coote.
“And is that all you’ve come to say?” said the bookseller.
“No,” said Dick. “It’s an awful shame if you can’t believe us. But if you won’t—well, we’d sooner pay you for the pencil and have done with it.” ”

“ This course of double dissimulation at the end of a week began to lose its charms, and Coote, with all his good nature and desire to make things pleasant for everybody, began to get tired of his two friends and long for a breath of freedom.
So he took an early morning stroll along the cliffs one morning, finishing up with Mr Webster’s shop in the High Street.
The gossiping Templeton stationer had suffered somewhat in temper since the reader saw him last, three months ago. The young gentry for whom he catered were not the “apples of his eyes” they had been. ”

“ Coote might introduce him. "Lord!" he said aloud to the darkness between grinning and dismay. He figured himself going into the Emporium to buy a tie, for example, and there in the face of Buggins, Carshot, Pierce and the rest of them, meeting "my friend, Lady Punnet!" It might not end with Lady Punnet! His imagination plunged and bolted with him, galloped, took wings and soared to romantic, to poetical altitudes. . . .
Suppose some day one met Royalty. By accident, say! He soared to that! After all,—twelve hundred a year is a lift, a tremendous lift. ”

“ And then Dick, when he came back, would gnash his teeth with envy and wish woe to the hour when he was fool enough to desert his noblest friend!
“Tell you what’ll be a lark, Coote,” said Heathcote, as the two strode on, arm in arm, followed by a small crowd of juniors, who, seeing they were “on the swagger,” hoped to be in the sport as spectators. “Tell you what; we’ll have a walk round the roofs. I know where we can get up. We can get nearly all round the Quad. Won’t it be a spree?”
Coote looked as delighted as he could, and said he hoped they wouldn’t be caught, or there might be a row. ”

“ Coote bid us take up and make all the haste we could to get before them into Leicester fields, so taking up the chair again, Mr. Coote bid us make haste, and if we could go no faster, he swore, damn him, he would run his sword in one of our bodies: There were two chairs before me, and my lord Mohun and my lord Warwick followed in two chairs after me; and when we came to the corner of Leicester fields, at Green street end, all the three chairs were set down a-breast again, and Mr. Coote put his hand in his pocket, and took out half a guinea to pay, and said he had no silver ”

“ Seeing a print of Coote hanging in the room, he at once recognised the face and figure which he had not seen for fifty years, and, forgetting his salute to the living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his hand, and made a solemn bow to the dead. ”

“ Miss Coote and her friend are delighted; the sight is so stimulating, their blood rushes through their veins and raises their voluptuous feelings of sensuality to the highest pitch, the cries of pain are so much music to their ears, and they cut the little bottoms dreadfully till the blood starts from the weals; the poor agonized mother is another spirit, which only adds to their enjoyment, as although only a spectator she seems to feel every blow, and cries and sobs as if her heart would break. ”

“ I am dressed,” said Coote, in alarm.
“You muff, you’re not in your flannels. Think of a new fellow turning up to Hall first day not in his flannels, eh, Georgie?”
“My eye!” said Georgie; “what a row there’d be!”
“Cut as hard as ever you can, and put them on. Better not show up till just as the clock strikes, in case fellows humbug you. We’ll be near the door and show you where to sit.” ”

“ In a minute more all anxiety Coote may have felt as to crowding any one was at an end. He was a yard or two in the rear of the last man, with a stitch in his side, beginning in his inmost soul to wonder whether the new “Sociables” Club was such a very good thing after all.
Dick and Georgie, as they gradually sacrificed their prospect of being in at the death, and fell back to the support of their ally, waxed very contemptuous of stitch in a fellow’s side. ”

“ Coote had his commission in the regiment of guards, he was complaining of the streightness of his circumstances; he was to pay for his commission 400 guineas, and said he had but 300 for to pay for it: and my lord of Warwick did then say to him, do not trouble yourself about that, or let not that disturb you, for I will take care you shall have 100 guineas, and he said he would give order to his steward to pay him so much; and I was told afterwards that he did so.
Earl of Warwick—I desire he may tell, if he knows of any other particular instances of my friendship to Mr. Coote? ”

“ Coote put in his head, saying:
“Mr. Eldon is here, asking to see the children. Let them come right in. No help for it, Sarah,” he added in a lower tone and with a look of suppressed anger and apprehension. “I can’t say yet whether it’s any tale-telling that’s brought him; but if that’s the case somebody’ll have to suffer for it.” And he too looked menacingly at poor trembling little Ethel.
“There then, go along all o’you,” said Mrs. Coote, who had just finished wiping their hands and faces, “and mind what you say and do, or you may get yourselves into trouble.” ”

“ In the year 1695, Captain Kidd chanced to be anchored in London port in his brigantine Antigoa, busy with loading merchandise and shipping a crew for the return voyage across the Atlantic. Now, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, an ambitious and energetic Irishman, had just then been appointed royal governor of the Colonies of New York and Massachusetts, and he was particularly bent on suppressing the swarm of pirates who infested the American coast and waxed rich on the English commerce of the Indian Ocean. ”