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 important documents ever laid upon the table of the House of Commons' (Memoirs, ed. Wheatley, ii. 109). For his services on this body Dundas openly paid him in the house a very high compliment. When Lord Shelburne was appointed one of the principal secretaries of state early in 1782, Orde became his under-secretary, and, on the formation of the new ministry under Shelburne in July 1782, he was promoted to the post of secretary to the treasury. In this position he assiduously discharged one of its chief duties by giving to his political friends frequently dinner parties at his house in Park Place, St. James's Street (, ii. 358–359, 414). He went out of office with Shelburne as representing his views in the House of Commons, and, through attachment to his old master, declined, in December 1783, the offer of Pitt to resume his old place at the treasury.

From February 1784 to November 1787 the Duke of Rutland was lord-lieutenant of Ireland, with Orde as his chief secretary and a member of the privy council in Ireland. They endeavoured in 1786 to form a 'commercial union' between England and Ireland, their object being to 'reunite the two countries by the chain of mutual benefits and an equal participation of the advantages of trade. The propositions put forward by Orde in the Irish parliament were duly assented to, and were then introduced by Pitt into the English House of Commons. They were vehemently opposed by Fox and the other whig leaders, but, after a protracted struggle of parties, they passed through parliament, mainly through the arguments that their adoption would tend to promote the prosperity of England. The changes which were introduced into the 'Irish propositions' during their progress through the English parliament materially altered their effect, to the disadvantage of the dependent country; and when the scheme was again brought before the Irish House of Commons, it was fiercely resisted by Grattan, Flood, and Curran, and only carried by nineteen on the first division. All that Orde could effect was to obtain an order that the bill should be read a first time and printed for circulation through Ireland, 15 Aug. 1785. It was then dropped. Many letters to and from him on these propositions are printed in the 'Memoirs of Henry Grattan,' vol. iii., and in the 'Correspondence of the light Hon. John Beresford,' i. 251–94. The views of the viceroy and himself are set out in the 'Correspondence of Pitt and Charles, duke of Rutland' (1842 and 1890), and in it are contained two long letters to him, and from the duke (pp. 153–8), the other from Pitt (pp. 86–9). Pitt blamed him for irresolution, but the charge was based on erroneous information.

In 1787 Orde introduced into the Irish House of Conmions, in a speech of three hours' length, an 'extremely comprehensive' scheme of education. The clergy were to continue the maintenance of schools with increased charges at a graduated scale on their incomes, and the bishops and dignitaries of the church were also to contribute. Two great academies in Dublin and some smaller institutions were to educate thirteen thousand children, and the annual cost of this was to be defrayed by the Incorporated Society to the extent of 13,000l., and by the state with a grant of 7,100l. All of these propositions passed through the house by a unanimous vote, with the exception of the clause relating to the foundation of a second university, which was opposed by a single member.

The government of Ireland by the Duke of Rutland was mainly, through his personal popularity, very successful. The duke died in October 1787, and Orde retired with health much broken. An Irish pension of 1,700l. per annum was conferred upon him, but the grant was attacked, and not without reason, as a violation of the assurance on which the salary of the office of chief secretary had been augmented. Orde was depreciated by Sir Jonah Barrington as 'a cold, cautious, slow and sententious man, tolerably well informed, but not at all talented, with a mind neither powerful nor feeble' (Rise and Fall of Irish Nation, pp. 320–1 ; Historic Anecdotes of Ireland, ii. 219).

Orde married at Marylebone, on 7 April 1778, Jean Mary Browne Powlett, natural daughter of Charles, fifth duke of Bolton, by Mary Browne Banks, on whom, in default of male issue to the duke's next brother, the greater part of the extensive estates wore entailed. On the death of the sixth duke, leaving only female children, on 24 Dec. 1794, the property passed to Orde in right of his wife, and by royal license he assumed, on 7 Jan. 1795, the additional surname of Powlett. On 20 Oct. 1797 he was created Baron Bolton of Bolton Castle, Yorkshire, in the peerage of Great Britain. In 1791 he was appointed governor and vice-admiral of the Isle of Wight, and in 1800 he was created lord-lieutenant of Hampshire. He was also a lord of trade and plantations, receiver-general of the duchy-court of Lancaster, and registrar, examiner, and first clerk of the county palatine of Lancaster (, Alumni Eton. p. 346). During his official connection with the Isle of Wight he built Fernhill, near Wotton, and repaired the