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 Sussex militia. He became lieutenant-colonel of the regiment in 1794.

Pelham quickly developed a strong interest in public affairs. On 14 Sept. 1780 he was elected to the House of Commons for Sussex, and acted with the Rockingham whigs. His intimate friends soon included Fox, Windham, Lord Malmesbury, and Minto. In April 1782 he was appointed surveyor-general of the ordnance in Lord Rockingham's ministry. When he resigned office, together with Rockingham's successor, Lord Shelburne, in April 1783, George III expressed a hope that it would not be his final retirement. At the same time he was on intimate terms with the Prince of Wales (Addit. MS. 33128, ff. 103–105). In the summer of 1783 he reluctantly accepted the Duke of Portland's offer of the Irish secretaryship in the coalition administration (Addit. MS. 33100). According to Charlemont's biographer, he adroitly steered through a stormy session in the Irish House of Commons, in which he sat for Carrick (, Memoirs of Lord Charlemont, ii. 87). On the fall of Portland's government, Pelham declined the offer of Pitt, the new prime minister, to retain his office, but in January 1784 had ‘a very full and open conversation with Pitt and Lord Sydney on Irish affairs.’ Until the whig schism caused by the French revolution, he remained an active member of the opposition.

In 1785 he took exception to Pitt's Irish commercial proposals, and was a member of a committee appointed to inquire into Indian administration. On 2 March 1787 he moved the article charging Warren Hastings with breach of treaty and oppression in the matter of the rajah of Furrackabad (Parl. Hist. xxvi. 781 et seq.) During Hastings's trial Pelham spoke in support of the article of impeachment relating to the Begums of Oudh. In 1788 he declared himself in favour of regulation of the slave trade, in a debate initiated by Pitt; but he never submitted a promised proposition on the subject (ib. xxvii. 506).

Between 1789 and 1793 Pelham paid many prolonged visits to the continent. According to Lord Malmesbury, he was entrusted in June and July 1791 with letters to Lafayette and Barnave in Paris, interceding for the life of the king and queen; but he prudently burnt them (Diary, ii. 454). In the same year he visited Naples, where he dined with the king, and met Sir William and Lady Hamilton. In 1793, after a tour in Switzerland, he spent part of August in the Duke of York's quarters in Flanders. Early in 1794 Pelham definitely threw in his lot with the old whigs, who supported Pitt's foreign policy. Next year he took office under Pitt, becoming chief secretary to Lord Camden, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, who had replaced Lord Fitzwilliam. Before his arrival in Dublin in March Fitzgibbon, the lord chancellor, wrote to him: ‘I do not know a man who could come over here that would be so likely to succeed in composing the country as you’ (, vii. 93). Though opposed to catholic emancipation, Pelham wrote to a correspondent, when on his way to Ireland: ‘I will not lend my hand to a job for a clique on either side of the water. Resurgat Respublica, ruat Pitt, Beresford, &c.’ He had been elected member for Clogher in 1790, and represented that place till 1797, when he transferred himself to Armagh, and remained the representative of that city till the union. On 4 May 1795 he spoke against Grattan's emancipation bill, and thought that he thus inspired the protestants with a confidence in the English government which they had not felt for some time (ib. vii. 45, 103). In June Burke wrote to Pelham a long letter on Irish affairs, with especial reference to the newly established catholic seminaries (Addit. MS. 33101, ff. 191–2). But Pelham's health was bad; he was often in England, and soon wished to retire.

Mr. Lecky states that he spent more time in England than any Irish secretary since Grenville held office in 1782; yet he was in Ireland throughout the critical year 1797, during which his hope of pacifying Ireland sank very low (cf. Addit. MS. 32105, f. 327). After a severe illness he left Ireland in May 1798, on the eve of the rebellion. Castlereagh took his place temporarily, but Pelham never resumed it, and finally resigned in November. The king said of Pelham's withdrawal that it was ‘the greatest loss and greatest disappointment he could have experienced.’ Portland wrote, on 23 Dec. 1798, that the king hoped Pelham would be one of the commissioners in whom it was contemplated to vest the Irish government.

Throughout this period Pelham had retained his seat for Sussex at Westminster, and he attended the House of Commons when in London. On 22 Jan. 1801 Pelham moved, in an animated speech, the appointment of Addington as speaker (Parl. Hist. xxxv. 859;, Diary, i. 220). On 4 April he was voted chairman of the secret committee on the affairs of Ireland (, Diary, i. 263). On 13th instant he presented the report to the House of Commons, and on the next day moved for leave to bring in a bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland.

After having declined the offer of the secretaryship at war, the St. Petersburg em-