The New International Encyclopædia/Porto Novo (Madras)

PORTO NOVO. A seaport town of Madras, British India, situated on the Coromandel Coast, 15 miles south of Cuddalore (Map: India, D 6). Both the Portuguese and the Dutch had a factory here in the seventeenth century. Porto Novo is celebrated for its iron foundry, which supplied much of the material for the Madras railways, but is chiefly famous for the battle fought here on July 1, 1781, when Sir Eyre Coote, retreating after his defeat at Chidambaram, was again attacked by Hyder Ali with an oerwhelming force, and by adroit strategy routed his assailants with great loss. Population of Porto Novo, called by the natives Parangipetta, about 14,100.