In 1775 Henry Grattan was elected to Parliament, and sat with Henry Flood, but Harcourt was replaced by the Earl of Buckinghamshire at the time when these two Irishmen began their great campaign for the freedom of Irish trade. England's policy had been to restrict Irish commercial enterprise, and only men of the calibre of Grattan and Flood could have succeeded in compelling the Government to remove the embargo on Irish trade. Lord Buckinghamshire, who had been Ambassador to Russia, carried out a policy of concessions, and he was able to give the royal approval to the bills for relieving Irish Dissenters from the sacramental test, and also grant some much-needed reforms in the franchise. It must have been during the viceroyalty of Lord Buckinghamshire that English statesmen first thought of a legislative union with Ireland, for the reforms initiated by the viceroy undoubtedly pointed that way, reading their history in view of subsequent events. The rise of the Irish volunteer movement must have convinced the English Government that if Ireland was permitted to have its own legislation much longer the country would seek to break away from the monarchical union. Lord Buckinghamshire, however, was never informed of the Government's intentions. When he left in 1780, recalled by the Prime Minister, he was succeeded by Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle, one of the commissioners {182} who had failed to conciliate the American rebels a few years earlier. Lord Carlisle was a typical product of his age, when to graduate as a statesman one had to be at school or university with the reigning minister and have gambled one's way recklessly into favour. Every gentleman was a gambler, and Lord Carlisle was no exception to the rule. Before his sudden desire to shine as a politician he ruined himself at the card-tables, generously backing Fox's debts of honour, and, of course, paying them. It was the influence of Fox that led to his appointment to Ireland.