Orde was of an old Northumbrian family (his great-uncle, John Orde, sat for Berwick-on-Tweed 1713-15). Information about him before he entered Parliament is scant. The record of his attendances at congregations (meetings of the governing body of King’s College) suggests that he only resided there regularly for a short time in the first year of his fellowship.
There is only indirect evidence to show how Orde came to stand for Aylesbury, a venal and expensive borough. On 10 Dec. 1779 John Robinson wrote to Lord Sandwich
In the House, Orde, seconding the Address, 27 Nov. 1781, defended the Government’s American policy;
After the Government had through North’s negligence lost the direction of the select committee on Indian affairs, Robinson hand-picked the members of the secret committee set up on 2 May 1781 to investigate the causes of the war in the Carnatic.
When the Rockingham Administration was formed, Orde, who had stood by North to the end, became Shelburne’s under-secretary at the Home Office, whose province included Ireland, and the colonies. A letter from Burke to Rockingham, 27 Apr. 1782, gives one reason for this surprising appointment:
Lord Shelburne ... is furnished with the most active member of the committee of secrecy (Mr. Orde) which not only gives him the means of accomplishing his ends, but connects him with the advocate [Dundas] whose peculiar object (I know) is to be a principal governor in that department.
When on Rockingham’s death, 1 July 1782, Shelburne took over the Treasury, Orde became its secretary; and Robinson was helping them with lists and information.
You will find the Parliament is fixed to sit on the 26th of November. I have here received a letter of the 9th from Mr. Orde wishing to see me to talk on several subjects. I yesterday answered it, chalked out what struck me to be done about circular letters etc., and assured him that I will wait on him the moment of my return and give them every assistance that I can, which I will very sincerely do.
Little correspondence between Shelburne and Orde survives for their time at the Treasury—perhaps there never was much, Orde having taken a house in Park Place ‘exceedingly well situated to improve my means of paying attention to my duty, but especially in attending upon your Lordship’.
In April 1783 Orde left office with Shelburne, and when Dunning died in August and Barré fell ill, became his principal political correspondent and representative; showing ‘the sincerity and warmth’ of his attachment to Shelburne, who was not kept informed nor consulted by his previous associates even while they were forming a Government to replace the Coalition. Orde expected a dissolution of Parliament to stop his parliamentary career for a time, as he could ill afford the expense of re-election at Aylesbury, and would have to wait till the death of the Duke of Bolton might give him some opening;
I should feel myself most particularly obliged to your Lordship if you would use your interposition with Mr. Orde to prevail on him to accept the office of secretary. It is an object of the last importance to the country in the present crisis, that a person of his character and ability should be employed in that situation.
On 18 Feb. Orde went with Rutland to Ireland; and there he learnt on 27 Mar. from George Rose that he would be returned for Harwich, a safe Treasury borough.
Ireland was now Orde’s dominant concern even when he attended the House during visits paid to London to discuss Irish affairs with ministers. Thus he wrote to Rutland, 3 June 1784:
I have avoided taking my seat to-day as Sawbridge threatened a question upon reform of Parliament, and I was afraid of misconstruction upon my conduct, in whatever way I might direct it, if it found its way into a Dublin newspaper.
And when the question came up on 17 June: ‘I did not attend because I was anxious to avoid interpretation of my conduct in Ireland.’ ‘Orde stalks in and out of the House, sometimes like a ghost’, reported Daniel Pulteney to Rutland, 26 June.
In Ireland Orde became ‘the first instrument of Administration’ and its principal spokesman in Parliament, at a time when a remodelling of Anglo-Irish relations seemed imperative. This Pitt attempted by his ‘Irish propositions’, which were to admit Ireland to full commercial equality with Britain in return for an Irish contribution to Imperial expenses. This bill, introduced in the Dublin Parliament by Orde on 6 Feb. 1785, was passed with dubious amendments; and when next modified by the British Parliament to Ireland’s disadvantage, met in August with an opposition at Dublin which forced the Government to drop it. ‘Never was a ministerial defeat more signal’, writes Wraxall.
I give Mr. Orde credit for considerable abilities and industry, and for perfect good intention ... But I am sensible that his manners do not lead him to be direct and explicit in doing business, and that his temper is not decisive ... Occasions might arise in which the same want of address or vigour might be fatal.
Rutland’s reply is not extant but can be gathered from Pitt’s of 13 Nov.: ‘Every idea of Mr. Orde’s retirement will be totally laid aside in my mind.’
Mr. Orde’s health has been sacrificed to his zealous exertions ... in the service of the public, where ... his diligent and conscientious exertions have not been useless. His conduct has, in no instance, been distinguished by any inclination towards objects of emolument, nor has he shown any aspiration after rewards.
HMC Rutland, iii. 407, 409.
He asked, if Orde died, for a provision for his widow till she came into the Bolton inheritance. Ill as Orde was, he still continued transacting Irish business in London;
In subsequent years he played no important part in Parliament, and died 30 July 1807.
Orde was an etcher and cartoonist of no mean merit, and four volumes of his drawings, assembled by Orde himself in the early 1790s, are preserved at Bolton Hall.