The siege of Cuddalore was a battle during the War of the Austrian Succession on 17 June 1748.
Commanding a force of 800 Europeans and 1,000 Indian sepoys, Dupleix marched from Pondicherry and arrived on the hills at Bandapolam, three miles from Cuddalore, on the morning of 17 June.
Forewarned of the advance, major Lawrence Stringer (who had arrived in India in January 1748 to command the East India Company's forces and had formed the first regular Company battalion on the Coromandel coast) managed to thwart this attempt with a force of no more than 400 men by removing the garrison and taking away the guns to Fort St. David, to make the French believe the British were unable to hold it.
When night arrived, however, Stringer led his men and guns back into Cuddalore, so that when the French attacked on the stroke of midnight and tried to put their scaling ladders against the town walls they were met with such a hail of musket-fire and gunshot that their advance was stopped dead.
In the ensuing panic, the French made a hasty retreat to Pondicherry, with notable losses.