On the 23rd of October, 1862, he married Harriot Georgina, eldest daughter of the late Archibald Rowan Hamilton, of Killyleagh Castle, county Down. This lady, whose lineaments are almost as well known to Canadians as are those of His Lordship, still survives, and is the happy mother of a numerous family. In 1863 Lord Dufferin became a Knight of St. Patrick; and in the following year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the county Down. About the same time he was offered the position of Under-Secretary of State for India, which he accepted. In 1865 he was subjected to a searching examination respecting his views on the Irish Land question, before a Select Committee of the House of Commons. His examination lasted four days, and his evidence proved of incalculable value in the framing of the Act of Parliament which was passed before the close of the session. Several years later he put forth a vigorous pamphlet entitled, "An Examination of Mr. Mill's Plan for the Pacification of Ireland," in which he criticised John Stuart Mill's proposal that the landed estates of Irish landlords should be brought to a forced sale. Lord Dufferin's thorough knowledge of his subject, added to the fact that his views were sound, proved too much, even for the Master of Logic, who had made his proposal without due consideration of the subject, and on an incomplete statement of the facts. Lord Dufferin continued to fill the post of Secretary of State for India until early in 1866, when he was offered the Governorship of Bombay. The state of his mother's health--she had already begun to sink under the malady to which she finally succumbed a year later--was such as to forbid her accompanying him to India, and Lord Dufferin was too affectionate a son to leave her behind. He was accordingly compelled to decline the appointment. He accepted instead the post of Under-Secretary to the War Department, which he retained until the close of Earl Russell's Administration, in June, 1866. Upon the return of the Liberal Party to power under Mr. Gladstone, in the end of 1868, Lord Dufferin became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position which he retained up to the time of his being appointed Governor-General of Canada. He was also appointed Paymaster-General, and was sworn in as a Member of Her Majesty's Privy Council. In November, 1871, he was made an Earl and Viscount of the United Kingdom, under the titles of Earl of Dufferin and Viscount Clandeboye. The successive dignities thus heaped upon him are sufficient evidence of the rising favour with which he was regarded by the Members of the Government; and as matter of fact he had made great progress in the esteem of the leading members of his Party generally. On the 22nd of May, 1872, he received the appointment which was destined to give Canadians a special interest in his career--that of Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada.