Abercromby in Egypt and in the battles there of 8, 13, and 21 March. When Sir John Hutchinson, who succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby, commenced his march to Cairo, Coote was left in command before Alexandria, and conducted the blockade of that city from April to August 1801. In the latter month General Hutchinson rejoined the army before Alexandria, and determined to take it. He ordered Coote to take two divisions round to the west of the city, and to attack the castle of Marabout, which commanded it. The operation was successfully conducted; Coote took Marabout after a stubborn resistance, and Alexandria surrendered. His services in Egypt were so conspicuous that Coote was made a knight of the Bath, and also a knight of the new order of the Crescent by the sultan, and appointed to command an expedition which was to assemble at Gibraltar for service against South America. This expedition, however, was stopped by the peace of Amiens, and Coote returned to England, and in 1802 he was elected M.P. for Queen's County, in which he possessed large property inherited from the famous Sir Eyre Coote. He had already represented, in the Irish House of Commons, Ballynakill (1790–97) and Maryborough (1797–1800). He did not sit long in the House of Commons at this time, for in 1805 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and appointed lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica. In April 1808 he resigned his government from ill-health, for the West Indian climate greatly tried his constitution and affected his brain. Nevertheless, he was appointed second in command to Lord Chatham in 1809, when the Walcheren expedition was projected, and he superintended all the operations of the siege of Flushing until its surrender. His proceedings, however, were so eccentric during the expedition, that it was obvious that he could never again be trusted with a command. He was colonel of the 62nd foot 1806–10, elected M.P. for Barnstaple 1812, and promoted general in 1814. His conduct became more and more eccentric, and on 25 Nov. 1815 he was brought up at the Mansion House before the lord mayor on a charge of indecent conduct. The case was dismissed, but the Duke of York, the commander-in-chief, heard of these proceedings, and, in spite of strong representations from many distinguished officers, he directed Sir John Abercromby, Sir Henry Fane, and Sir George Cooke to report upon the matter. These three generals, after a long inquiry, reported that Coote was eccentric, not mad, and that his conduct had been unworthy of an officer and a gentleman. Coote was removed from his regiment, dismissed from the army, and degraded from the order of the Bath—severe punishment for a veteran officer, whose brain had been affected by severe wounds and service in tropical climates. Coote lost his seat in parliament at the dissolution of 1818, and died 10 Dec. 1823. He was twice married, and left issue by both wives. His first wife, Sarah (died 1795), daughter of John Robbard, is the subject of one of Romney's famous paintings.
[European Mag., April 1810, Military Panorama, May 1813, and ‘A Plain Statement of Facts relative to Sir Eyre Coote, containing the official correspondence and documents connected with his case,’ 1816.]
COOTE, HENRY CHARLES (1815–1885), writer of the ‘Romans in Britain’ and several legal treatises, was son of the well-known civilian, Charles Coote [q. v.] He was admitted a proctor in Doctors' Commons in 1840, practised in the probate court for seventeen years, and, when that court was thrown open to the whole legal profession in 1857, became a solicitor. He wrote several books on professional subjects, but devoted all his leisure in middle life to the study of early English history, folklore, and foreign literature. Coote frequently travelled in Italy, and was an accomplished linguist. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a founder of the Folklore Society, and an industrious contributor to learned periodicals. Attacked by paralysis in 1882, he died 4 Jan. 1885, being buried at Kensal Green.
Coote's name is chiefly associated with his endeavours to prove that the Roman settlers in Britain were not extirpated at the Teutonic conquest of the fifth century, and that the laws and customs observed in this country under Anglo-Saxon rule were in large part of Roman origin. The theory was first advanced by Coote in some papers published in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and in 1864 this material was expanded into a little volume entitled ‘A Neglected Fact in English History.’ Little attention was paid to Coote's researches until 1870, when Mr. E. A. Freeman subjected them to a fierce attack in a paper issued in ‘Macmillan's Magazine.’ Coote was stimulated to revise his work, and in 1878 he published a larger volume entitled ‘The Romans in Britain.’ All accessible authorities are here laid under contribution, and the importance of Coote's conclusions were acknowledged by Mr. Frederic Seebohm in his ‘English Village Community,’ 1883. Although Mr. Freeman and his disciples decline to modify their opinion that the Anglo-Saxon régime and population were free from any Roman taint, Coote's reasoning makes it clear that this opinion can only be finally accepted
