After acting as private secretary to his father’s friend Sylvester Douglas when chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, St. Paul followed his father and brothers into the army, but made no career for himself. He lived instead the life of a country gentleman, acting the part of an officer only at the territorial level and assisting his father and elder brother in the management of their estates.
With the backing of the Duke of Northumberland he was elected for the open borough of Berwick in 1812. Classed ‘Government’ by the Treasury he spoke in support of Castlereagh’s motion for adjournment, 20 Dec. 1813, delivering a panegyric on the foreign policy of government and castigating the Whigs for their ‘finical opposition’. His reference to the ‘provident and comprehensive mind’ of the Prince Regent was greeted with laughter. His tone was considered intemperate for a maiden speech and drew from Whitbread the jibe that ‘from his manner of expressing his feelings [he] must have felt very strongly when silent’.
He supported Christian missions to India and opposed Catholic relief and parliamentary reform.
