COLONEL COOTE CONQUERS ARCOT.
General Lally having retreated with his broken troops to Pondicherry, the baron de Vasserot was detached towards the same place, with a thousand horse and three hundred sepoys, to ravage and lay waste the French territory. In the meantime, the indefatigable colonel Coote undertook the siege of Chilliput, which in two days was surrendered by the chevalier de Tilly; himself and his garrison remaining prisoners of war. Such also was the fate of fort Timmery; which being reduced, the colonel prosecuted his march to Arcot, the capital of the province, against the fort of which he opened his batteries on the fifth day of February. When he had carried on his approaches within sixty yards of the crest of the glacis, the garrison, consisting of two hundred and fifty Europeans, and near three hundred sepoys, surrendered as prisoners of war; and here the English commander found two-and-twenty pieces of cannon, four mortars, and a great quantity of all kinds of military stores. Thus the campaign was gloriously finished with the conquest of Arcot; after the French army had been routed and ruined by the diligence of colonel Coote, whose courage, conduct, and activity, cannot be sufficiently admired. The reader will perceive, that, rather than interrupt the thread of such an interesting narration, we have ventured to encroach upon the annals of the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty.
STATE OF THE BELLIGERENT POWERS IN EUROPE.
Having thus followed the British banners through the glorious tracks they pursued in different parts of Asia and America, we must now convert our attention to the continent of Europe, where the English arms, in the course of this year, triumphed with equal lustre and advantage. But first it may be necessary to sketch out the situation in which the belligerent powers were found at the close of winter. The vicissitudes of fortune with which the preceding campaign had been chequered, were sufficient to convince every potentate concerned in the war, that neither side possessed such a superiority in strength or conduct as was requisite to impose terms upon the other. Battles had been fought with various success; and surprising efforts of military skill had been exhibited, without producing one event which tended to promote a general peace, or even engender the least desire of, accommodation. On the contrary, the first and most violent transports of animosity had by this time subsided into a confirmed habit of deliberate hatred; and every contending power seemed more than ever determined to protract the dispute; while the neutral states kept aloof, without expressing the least desire of interposing their mediation. Some of them were restrained by considerations of conveniency; and others waited in suspense for the death of the Spanish monarch, as an event which, they imagined, would be attended with very important consequences in the southern parts of Europe. With respect to the maintenance of the war, whatever difficulties might have arisen in settling funds to support the expense, and finding men to recruit the different armies, certain it is all these difficulties were surmounted before the opening of the campaign. The court of Vienna, though hampered by the narrowness of its finances, still found resources in the fertility of its provinces, in the number and attachment of its subjects, who more than any other people in Europe acquiesce in the dispositions of their sovereign; and, when pay cannot be afforded, willingly contribute free quarters for the subsistence of the army. The czarina, though she complained that the stipulated subsidies were ill paid, nevertheless persisted in pursuing those favourite aims which had for some time influenced her conduct; namely, her personal animosity to the king of Prussia, and her desire of obtaining a permanent interest in the German empire. Sweden still made a show of hostility against the Prussian monarch, but continued to slumber over the engagements she had contracted. France, exhausted in her finances, and abridged of her marine commerce, maintained a resolute countenance; supplied fresh armies for her operations in Westphalia; projected new schemes of conquest; and cajoled her allies with fair promises, when she had nothing more solid to bestow. The king of Prussia’s dominions were generally drained, or in the hands of the enemy; but to balance these disadvantages he kept possession of Saxony; and enjoyed his annual subsidy from Great Britain, which effectually enabled him to maintain his armies on a respectable footing, and open the campaign with equal eagerness and confidence.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760
FRANCKFORT SEIZED BY THE FRENCH.
The Hanoverian army, commanded by prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, was strengthened by fresh reinforcements from England, augmented with German recruits, regularly paid, and well supplied with every comfort and convenience which foresight could suggest, or money procure; yet, in spite of all the precautions that could be taken, they were cut off from some resources which the French, in the beginning of the year, opened to themselves by a flagrant stroke of perfidy, which even the extreme necessities of a campaign can hardly excuse. On the second day of January, the French regiment of Nassau presented itself before the gates of Franckfort-on-the-Maine, a neutral imperial city; and, demanding a passage, it was introduced, and conducted by a detachment of the garrison through the city as far as the gate of Saxenhausen, where it unexpectedly halted, and immediately disarmed the guards. Before the inhabitants could recover from the consternation into which they were thrown by this outrageous insult, five other French regiments entered the place; and here their general, the prince de Soubise, established his head-quarters. How deeply soever this violation of the laws of the empire might be resented by all honest Germans, who retained affection for the constitution of their country, it was a step from which the French army derived a very manifest and important advantage; for it secured to them the course of the Maine and the Upper Rhine; by which they received, without difficulty or danger, every species of supply from Mentz, Spire, Worms, and even the country of Alsace, while it maintained their communication with the chain formed by the Austrian forces and the army of the empire.