Expedition to Ostend

As Coote held the Dover army command, he was appointed to command the troops employed in the expedition, which Sir Home Popham had planned to cut the sluices at Ostend and thus flood that part of the Netherlands which was then in the possession of the French. The troops were only 1,300 in number. The Navy successfully disembarked them and they succeed in cutting the sluices as proposed on 18 May.[1] They also destroyed the lock-gates of the Bruges–Ostend Canal, which made canal navigation between Holland, Flanders, and France impossible.[2] This meant that any movement of barges had to be by sea, leaving them vulnerable to attack by the Royal Navy.

A high wind off the land then sprang up, and the ships could not come in to take the troops off. French troops were hurried up, and the small English force was completely hemmed in. After a desperate resistance, in which he lost six officers and 109 men killed and wounded, Coote, who was himself severely wounded, was forced to surrender (although he was shortly back in command at Dover after a prisoner exchange).[1]

• Field of Mars: Being an Alphabetical Digestion of the Principal Naval and Military Engagements, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, Particularly of Great Britain and Her Allies, from the Ninth Century to the Present Period... 2. G and J Robinson. 1801. p. 353–357.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coote, Eyre (1762-1824?)". Dictionary of National Biography. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 161–162.

• "No. 15017". The London Gazette. 19 May 1798. pp. 421–425.