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.