Siege of Negapatam

Siege of Negapatam
Part of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the Second Anglo-Mysore War
Date 21 October–11 November 1781 Location Negapatam, then a Dutch colony in India Result British victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	Dutch Republic Sultanate of Mysore
Commanders and leaders
Hector Munro Edward Hughes	Reynier van Vlissingen Hyder Ali

The Siege of Negapatam was the first major offensive military action on the Indian subcontinent following the arrival of news that war had been declared between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, beginning the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. A British force besieged the Dutch-controlled port of Negapatam, the capital of Dutch Coromandel, on the eastern coast of India, which capitulated after the fortification's walls were breached. The Dutch garrison consisted of 500 European troops, 5,500 local troops, and 2,000 troops of Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore.

While many British troops were occupied with fighting Hyder Ali's armies as part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and General Eyre Coote was opposed to offensive actions against the Dutch, Lord Macartney, the governor of Madras, was able to raise more than 4,000 troops and secure the assistance of Admiral Sir Edward Hughes to defeat the larger Dutch and Mysorean defence force.

Following French entry into the American War of Independence in 1778, Great Britain had moved rapidly to gain control over French colonial outposts in India. Their seizure of the French port of Mahé on the west coast in 1779 prompted Hyder Ali, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, who claimed the port to be under his protection, to open the Second Anglo-Mysore War against British holdings in southern India. He made strong initial gains, with his troops occasionally threatening the main British outpost of Madras on the east coast. By the start of the 1781 monsoon season, the British and Mysoreans were at an uneasy stalemate.

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