Following studies at
Eton and
Trinity College Dublin, Coote
purchased a commission in 1774 as an ensign in the
37th Regiment of Foot, of which his uncle
Lieutenant- General Sir Eyre Coote was colonel. His regiment embarked for North America to fight in the
American War of Independence, and he carried the colours at the
Battle of Long Island on 27 August 1776. He was then promoted lieutenant, and served with that rank at York Island, Rhode Island, the
expedition to the Chesapeake, and the battles of
Brandywine,
Germantown, and
Monmouth Court House. He was promoted captain on 10 August 1778, and served in the
campaign in New York in 1779, at the
siege of Charleston in 1780, and finally throughout Lord Cornwallis's campaigns in Virginia up to the
capitulation of Yorktown, when he became a prisoner. After his release he returned to England, and became major of the
47th Foot Regiment in 1783, and lieutenant-colonel of the
70th Foot in 1788. In 1793, on the outbreak of the
war with France, he accompanied Sir
Charles Grey on
campaign to the West Indies in command of a battalion of light infantry, formed from the light companies of the various regiments in the expedition, and greatly distinguished himself throughout the operations there, and especially at the storming of the
Morne Fortuné in
Guadeloupe, for which he was thanked in general orders. Coote was promoted colonel on 24 January 1794, and returned with Sir
Ralph Abercromby in 1795 to the
West Indies, where he again distinguished himself, and for his services was made an
aide-de-camp to King
George III. In 1796 he was made a brigadier-general, and appointed to command the camp at
Bandon in Ireland, and on 1 January 1798 he was promoted
major-general, and shortly after given the important command of
Dover. As Coote held the Dover post he was appointed to command the troops employed in
the expedition which had been planned by Sir
Home Popham 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 thirteen hundred in number, and were successfully disembarked and cut the sluices as proposed on 18 May. 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, and 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. He was soon exchanged, and then returned to his command at Dover, but was summoned from it in 1799 to command a division in the
Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. Coote's and Don's division formed
Sir James Pulteney's column in the fierce
battle of Bergen, but the successes of Pulteney's and Abercromby's columns could not make up for the failure of the rest, and
Frederick, Duke of York had to sign the
Convention of Alkmaar. In 1800, Coote was appointed to command a brigade in the Mediterranean, and bore his part in the disembarkation of Sir Ralph 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. Coote appears as one of the Heroes of the Egypt Campaign in a commemorative engraving of 1802. 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. Victory at the
Battle of Alexandria followed; 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. Coote was 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 more famous Sir
Eyre Coote (1726–1783). He had already represented, in the
Irish House of Commons,
Ballynakill (1790–1797) 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 (1806–1810) and the
34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot (1810–1816), elected M.P. for
Barnstaple in 1812, and promoted general in 1814. His conduct became more and more eccentric, and as "William Cooper" describes in his
Flagellation and the Flagellants: A History of the Rod, in November 1815, he entered
Christ's Hospital school for boys and offered some boys money for an opportunity to
flog them. After that he asked them to flog him and rewarded them with money. Caught by the school nurse, he was charged for indecent conduct. On 25 November 1815, he was brought up at the
Mansion House before the
Lord Mayor of London on the charge, and acquitted after "donating" £1000 to the school. Although the case had been dismissed, the Duke of York, the commander-in-chief of the British Army, 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. On 21 May 1816, Coote was removed from his regiment, dismissed from the army, and degraded from the
Order of the Bath. Coote lost his seat in parliament at the dissolution of 1818, and died on 10 December 1823. ==Personal life==