1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porto Novo

PORTO NOVO, a town of British India, on the Coromandel coast in the South Arcot district of Madras. Pop. (1901), 13,712. The English began trading here in 1683, when they found both the Danes and the Portuguese already established. The place is chiefly famous for the battle in July 1781, in which Sir Eyre Coote with 8000 men defeated Hyder Ali with 60,000 and saved the Madras presidency. In 1830 an attempt, finally unsuccessful mainly owing to the lack of fuel, was made to smelt iron from the ores found in the vicinity.