thirty years of age, and he went at the outset by the name of the Boy-Secretary, a title which Sir Robert Peel and the late Earl Derby had borne before him. He wrote to his brother with diffidence as to his fitness, but very resolute as to trying to do his best: 'I am a new hand, but at any rate I am not afraid of the work.'
Having accepted office, Lord Naas went over to Ireland to seek re-election. But he found things changed in County Kildare since 1847. In that year the popularity which he had won during the famine just enabled him to turn the scale at the hustings. The ebullition of public feeling had naturally passed off by 1853, and Lord Naas found it prudent to content himself with the less difficult constituency of Coleraine. He sat for Coleraine in the north of Ireland from 1852 to 1857, when he came in for Cockermouth, in Cumberland, backed by the interest of his wife's family, the Wyndhams. This borough he continued to represent until he left for India in 1868.
During the short time which the Conservatives continued in power, after Lord Naas' appointment to the Irish Secretaryship, he brought forward, besides a Tenant-Right and a Tenants' Compensation Act, several very important Bills affecting Ireland. He spoke only on Irish questions; and after the resignation of his party, he steadily pursued the same system until the Conservatives again came into power, in 1858. During these six years he was practically the Parliamentary leader of the Conservative party in
