mission of forfeitures was dissolved, its duties being transferred to the commissioners of the revenue. In 1696 he went over to England for the recovery of his health. About this period he wrote ‘An Essay for the Conversion of the Irish,’ and the tract entitled ‘Some Thoughts on the Bill depending before the Rt. Hon. the House of Lords for prohibiting the Exportation of the Woollen Manufactures of Ireland to Foreign Parts. Humbly offered to their Lordships’ (Dublin, 1698, 4to) is also attributed to him. Upon the death of Sir John Hely in April 1701 Cox was appointed chief justice of the common pleas, and being sworn in on 16 May was a few days afterwards readmitted to the privy council.
On the accession of Anne he was summoned to London ‘to consult about the future parliament’ and other Irish matters. Though he strongly urged that ‘it was for the interest of England to encourage the woollen manufacturers in Ireland in the coarse branches of it,’ and boldly stated that he ‘thought it was the most impolitic step which was ever taken by England to prohibit the whole exportation of woollen manufactures from Ireland,’ the ministers felt unable to act on his advice. On his leaving England the queen presented him with 500l. for the expenses of his journey. In July 1703 Cox was nominated lord chancellor of Ireland in the room of John Methuen, appointed ambassador at Lisbon, and on 6 Aug. he took the oaths of office. In the first session of the new parliament, for which he issued the writs a few days after entering upon office, the ‘Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery’ was passed without, it is strange to say, a dissentient voice in either house in spite of the protests of counsel who were heard at the bar on behalf of the Roman catholics. On 4 Dec. 1703 he was presented with the freedom of the city of Dublin, and in the following year, owing to his recommendation, an English act was passed, authorising the exportation of Irish linen to the plantations. He was created a baronet on 21 Nov. 1706. During the absence of the lord-lieutenant from Ireland Cox several times acted as one of the lords justices. His refusal to allow an election by the privy council of a new lord justice on the death of his colleague, Lord Cutts, gave rise to considerable contention; but his action was upheld by the English legal authorities. Upon the appointment of the Earl of Pembroke to the post of lord-lieutenant, Cox was removed from the chancellorship 30 June 1707, and Chief Baron Freeman appointed in his place. During his retirement from public life he devoted himself chiefly to the study of theology, and in 1709 published ‘An Address to those of the Roman Communion in England, occasioned by the late Act of Parliament to prevent the growth of Popery, recommended to those of the Roman Communion in Ireland upon a late like occasion.’ He also wrote about this time ‘An Enquiry into Religion, and the Use of Reason in reference to it,’ pt. i. (London, 1713, 8vo), which apparently was never completed. In 1711 he was appointed chief justice of the queen's bench; but on the death of Anne was, with other judges, removed from the bench, as well as from the privy council. His dismissal seems to have been chiefly owing to his refusal to comply with the directions of the lords justices of England in regard to the election of the lord mayor of Dublin. A number of resolutions were passed in the Irish House of Commons censuring the late chief justice, his conduct in his judicial capacity was impugned, and insinuations were made that he had espoused the cause of the Pretender. The latter charge was destitute of any foundation, and the others falling to the ground upon investigation no further proceedings were taken against him. Giving up all thoughts of further public life he retired into the country. In April 1733 he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, from the effects of which he died on 3 May following, in his eighty-fourth year. By his wife, who predeceased him on 1 June 1715, he had a numerous family. Cox was a strictly honest, upright man, with considerable energy of purpose, and when his mind was not warped, as it too often was, by anti-catholic prejudices, a thoroughly just administrator. His writings have little or no reputation, his chief work being the ‘History of Ireland,’ which is a mere hurried compilation. He was also the author of the ‘Remarks upon Ireland,’ which were printed in Bishop Gibson's translation of Camden's ‘Britannia’ (1695), and appears to have composed some pieces of poetry on General Ginkel's success in Ireland and the death of Lord-chancellor Porter. The latter piece was the means of eliciting the rebuke from Sir Robert Southwell, ‘that poetry was not the way to preferment, but a weed in a judge's garden.’ He was succeeded in the title by his grandson Richard, who established a linen manufactory at Dunmanway, co. Cork, near the family seat. It was he who wrote the letter (dated Dunmanway, 15 May 1749) to Thomas Prior, ‘shewing from experience a sure method to establish the linen manufacture, and the beneficial effects it will immediately produce,’ which is erroneously attributed to his grandfather by Watt. The baronetcy is supposed to have become extinct on the death of Sir Francis Hawtrey Cox, the twelfth baronet, in 1873; but the title is
