On this day, Captain Eyre Coote with 50 men and 100 sepoys of the 39th Regiment of Foot marched to Bandel, near Kolkata, on behalf of the East India Company, and destroyed several granaries of rice. This followed their capture of Kolkata and the ransacking of Hooghly. They returned to Kolkata on January 19.
Two companies of the regiment had sailed from England to Madras in 1756. One of the companies was under the command of Coote.
The East India Company’s campaign in Bengal since December 1756, under Robert Clive, would finally lead to the defeat of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah at the hands of the British in June 1757.
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