with large and important qualifications. Several papers bearing on this and cognate points were contributed by Coote to the ‘Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society.’
Coote's other writings are: 1. ‘Practices of the Ecclesiastical Courts, with Forms and Tables of Costs,’ 1846. 2. ‘The Common Form Practice of the Court of Probate in granting probates … with the New Act (20 & 21 Vict. c. 77),’ 1858; 2nd edition (with Dr. T. H. Tristram's ‘Practice of the Court in Contentious Business’) 1859; 9th edition 1883. 3. ‘Practice of the High Court of Admiralty,’ 1860; and 2nd edition 1869. His last published work was a paper in the ‘Folklore Quarterly Journal’ for January 1885, to which he was a very frequent contributor.
[Athenæum for 17 Jan. 1885, p. 86, and 24 Jan. p. 122; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
COOTE, HOLMES (1817–1872), surgeon, was born on 10 Nov. 1817, and was second son of Richard Holmes Coote, a conveyancer. He was educated at Westminster School, and at the age of sixteen was made apprentice to Sir William Lawrence, one of the surgeons to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1845 he obtained a prize at the College of Surgeons for an essay ‘On the Anatomy of the Fibres of the Human Brain, illustrated by the Anatomy of the same parts in the Lower Vertebrata.’ His first book was published in 1849, ‘The Homologies of the Human Skeleton,’ and is an explanation of the relation of the several bones of the human skeleton to the parts of the archetype skeleton of Richard Owen. It is a mere piece of book-work. He was elected demonstrator of anatomy in the St. Bartholomew's Medical School, and continued to teach in the dissecting-room till elected assistant surgeon in 1854. Shortly after he received leave from the governors of the hospital to be absent as civil surgeon in charge of the wounded from the Crimean war at Smyrna. After his return he published ‘A Report on some of the more important Points in the Treatment of Syphilis,’ 1857, and in 1863 he was elected surgeon to the hospital. Besides some shorter writings, Coote published in the ‘St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports’ three papers on diseases of the joints (vols. i. and ii.), one on the treatment of wounds (vol. vi.), on rickets (vol. v.), on operations for stone (vol. iv.), and one on a case of aneurysm. In 1867 he published a volume ‘On Joint Diseases.’ He wrote easily, but without much collected observation, thought, or research, and it is only as evidence of the practice of his period that his works deserve consultation. He was a tall man of burly frame, of kindly disposition and convivial tastes. He married twice, but was never in easy circumstances, nor attained much practice. While still in the prime of life he looked older than his years, and was attacked by general paralysis with delusions of boundless wealth, and died in December 1872.
[Memoir by Luther Holden in St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, 1873; MS. Minute-book of Medical Council of St. Bartholomew's; personal knowledge.]
COOTE, RICHARD, first Earl of Bellamont (1636–1701), governor of New York, was the only son of Richard Coote, lord Coloony in the peerage of Ireland (who had been granted that title on the same day, 6 Sept. 1660, that his elder brother, Sir Charles Coote [q. v.], was created Earl of Mountrath), by Mary, daughter of Sir George St. George of Carrickdrumruske, co. Leitrim, and sister of the first Lord St. George. He succeeded his father as second Lord Coloony in 1683, and having married Catherine, daughter and heiress of Bridges Nanfan of Birtsmorton, Worcestershire, he acquired an interest in that county, and was elected M.P. for Droitwich in 1688. He was a vigorous supporter of William III both in parliament and in the campaign in Ireland, and, though attainted by James's Irish parliament in 1689, he was largely rewarded by King William, made treasurer and receiver-general to Queen Mary, appointed governor of co. Leitrim, and finally, on 2 Nov. 1689, created Earl of Bellamont in the peerage of Ireland. He was re-elected for Droitwich in 1689, and continued to sit in the English House of Commons until 1695, in which year he was appointed governor of New England, with a special mission to put down piracy and unlawful trading. A certain Colonel Robert Levingston suggested to Lord Bellamont that Captain Kidd was a fit man to put down the piracy which prevailed in the West Indies and on the American coast, and when the king was obliged to refuse Kidd a ship of war, Levingston and Lord Bellamont induced the Duke of Shrewsbury, Lords Somers, Orford, Romney, and others, to advance a sum of 6,000l., with which the Adventure was fitted out for Kidd, with special powers to arrest pirates. When Lord Bellamont arrived at his seat of government in 1697 after the peace of Ryswick, he heard that Kidd had been reported as a most audacious pirate by the East India Company, and that he was again on the American coast, and he felt his honour involved in seizing this pirate captain, whom he had been chiefly instrumental in
