SIR CHARLES GREY (1729-1807) & SIR EYRE COOTE (1762-1823)

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SIR CHARLES GREY (1729-1807) & SIR EYRE COOTE (1762-1823)
A collection of documents and letters relating to Sir Eyre Coote
including six a.l.s from Sir Charles Grey, including a 3pp. a.l.s.
dated Barham Court, 28th May 1798, to Sir Eyre Coote whilst in captivity in Ostend where he had been severly wounded, informing him that a surgeon was being sent and lamenting his fate 'I cannot my Dearest friend enter into my feelings concerning that which has happened, and the sequel of your well planned and arranged expedition...you know me and what I have suffered on your account, and have to entreat you will make yourself perfectly easy, having done everything that men could do...His majesty and the whole nation praise your conduct in every respect', another one sent before his departure to the Helder (1799) and four others, one sent to him during his siege of Alexandria (1800-01); together with two manuscript warrants signed by George III, one ordering the removal of '...the Banner, Gate & Achievements of Sir Eyre Coote, out of King Henry the Seventh's Chapel', and the other '...for the degradation of Sir Eyre Coote from the most Honorable Order of the Bath' and a manuscript journal by Eyre Coote of a trip to Holland, Flanders and Paris in 1791. (10)

Lot Essay

By 1815, after a highly distinguised career in the army, it was clear that Sir Eyre Coote's behaviour was becoming more and more eccentric. He was charged for indecent conduct and although the case was dismissed, he was removed from his regiment, dismissed from the army and stripped of the order of the Bath - severe punishment for a veteran officer whose brain had been affected by severe wounds and service in tropical climates.

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