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 to the baronetcy, on 14 Nov. 1773. His father, who sat in parliament for Cheshire for forty years, was ardently devoted to country pursuits, and kept up an open-handed hospitality, which eventually caused him to sell the Stapleton estates for 200,000l. At the age of eight Stapleton Cotton was sent to a grammar school at Audlem, a few miles from his father's park gates, where Vernon Harcourt, afterwards archbishop of York, was one of his schoolfellows, and where his education was greatly neglected. A quick, lively boy, he was known by his family as ‘Young Rapid,’ and was continually in scrapes. Afterwards, he was four years at Westminster School (entered 28 Jan. 1785), his father at that time having a town house in Berkeley Square. Next he went to a private military academy at Norwood House, Bayswater, kept by Major Reynolds of the Shropshire militia, where he learned little more than cleaning his firelock and accoutrements. On 26 Feb. 1790 he obtained a second lieutenancy without purchase in the 23rd royal Welsh fusiliers, and joined that corps in Dublin the year after. He became first lieutenant 16 March 1791, and did duty with the regiment until 28 Feb. 1793, when he was promoted to a troop in the 6th carabiniers. That fine regiment—the old 3rd Irish horse—was then notoriously Irish in tone, and the hard-drinking and duelling proclivities of his brother officers gave ‘Little Cotton's’ friends some concern, but his temperate habits and good temper kept him out of trouble. He embarked with his regiment in August 1793, and joined the Duke of York's army just after the siege of Dunkirk, and made the campaigns of that year and the following spring, when he was present at Prémont and the cavalry battle at Cateau in 1794. A few days after the latter Cotton was promoted to a majority in the 59th foot, and on 9 March 1794, at the age of twenty-one, became lieutenant-colonel of the newly raised 25th light dragoons, then known as Gwyn's hussars. He commanded the regiment at several stations in the south of England, including Weymouth, where he was a good deal noticed by George III and the royal family, and in 1796 embarked with it for the Cape and India. The regiment arrived at the Cape about July 1796, and, in view of an expected attack by the French and Dutch fleets on the colony, was at once mounted on Boer horses, in readiness for field service. Cotton commanded the advance guard of the force sent from Cape Town to Saldanha Bay, which witnessed the surrender, on 18 Aug. 1795, of the Dutch ships which had escaped when the colony was taken by the British in September 1795. The 25th dragoons then went on to Madras, and served through the campaign against Tippoo Sahib in 1799, including the battle of Malavelly and the siege of Seringapatam, during which Cotton appears to have made acquaintance with Colonel Arthur Wellesley. Cotton's elder brother, Robert, having died, his father, anxious for the return of his surviving son, procured for him an exchange home. Accordingly, he left the 25th (re-numbered a year or two later as the 22nd) light dragoons at Madras early in 1800, and joined the 16th light dragoons on the Kentish coast. There he met and, after a three months' courtship, married his first wife, Lady Anna Maria Clinton, a beautiful girl of nineteen, then staying at Margate with her mother, who was the widow of the third Duke of Newcastle, and afterwards married to General Catline Crauford. Cotton was next stationed with his regiment at Brighton for some time, and then proceeded with it to Ireland, and was stationed at Gort, where his eldest son was born, and afterwards in Dublin, where the 16th were quartered during Emmett's insurrection. Cotton, who attained the rank of colonel on 1 Jan. 1800, became a major-general 30 Oct. 1805, and for a time had command of a cavalry brigade at Weymouth under the Duke of Cumberland. In 1806 he was returned for Newark and sat for that borough until his elevation to the peerage. His wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, died in 1807, of a rapid decline, and for some time after Cotton remained in retirement with his family. In August 1808 he was despatched to Vigo with a brigade composed of the 14th and 16th light dragoons, the destination of which was changed to Lisbon. The brigade was employed on the Portuguese frontier during Moore's campaign in Spain, and afterwards served in the north of Portugal in 1809, including the operations against Oporto. Until the arrival of Lieutenant-general Payne, Cotton was in command of the whole of the allied cavalry. At Talavera he commanded a brigade and did signal service, unrecorded in the despatches (see Comb. Corresp. i. 121–2). News reached him of his father's death at the end of the year, and in January 1810 he went home. A baronet with a goodly estate, which, through his father's unbusiness-like habits, was sorely in need of supervision, a man of fashion and well received in society, Cotton had many inducements to remain at home; but he preferred to pursue a military career, his qualifications for which, owing, perhaps, to his very youthful appearance at the time, and his modest reticence in regard of his services, were not always fully recognised. He is described at the time as of moderate stature,