Foljambe’s parliamentary career was blighted by the political crisis of 1784. As Member for Yorkshire with the concurrence of his wife’s uncle Sir George Savile, Earl Fitzwilliam, and the Yorkshire Association, his preference for Fox over Pitt made a martyr of him at the general election (though he withdrew before a poll). Apparently he was easily discouraged, or he would have stood again for the county, at Fitzwilliam’s invitation. Early in 1788, when Wilberforce became dangerously ill, he declined the offer; and again later that year, when the Regency crisis promised a dissolution. He thought little of his prospects. In the same year he jibbed at Beverley and in the following year at his native Hull, when Fitzwilliam pointed to them. He was nevertheless a contributor to Fox’s election expenses at Westminster and was prepared in 1790 to interest himself in the election of coroner for the West Riding for the sake of its possible ‘political consequences’. In this he was, as always, ‘too soon cooled in his pursuits, if the expected success did not immediately attend him’.
In December 1790 Foljambe declined Fitzwilliam’s offer of an opening at his pocket borough of Higham Ferrers. He did so again in January 1793 when, like Fitzwilliam, he was an alarmist, prepared to support war against revolutionary France. In 1798 he was believed to be Fitzwilliam’s nominee for the vacancy at Malton.
Foljambe had, before his election in 1806, asked Fitzwilliam to dispose of his seat whenever he wished, as he felt he was ‘a drone in the state’.