[3] By the time his father succeeded to the earldom in February 1822, the family estates at Churchtown, County Cork, and Enmore, Somerset, were heavily encumbered with debts.
While his father's seat in the House of Lords protected him from prosecution for debt, Viscount Perceval, as he then was styled, was not so fortunate, and was often forced to leave the country to escape writs.
Perhaps to escape this wandering life, he began to seek a seat in Parliament (which would protect him from duns) in 1824,[4] announcing he would stand for Penryn, where Henry Swann had fallen ill.
It is not clear that he ever took his seat; in April, his family's Irish agent and solicitor, Edward Tierney, was writing to him to beg him to "abandon his evil courses and his associates".
[4] Perceval inherited his father's property on the latter's death in 1835; Enmore had been sold to pay debts in the previous year, while the Irish estates in North Cork were so heavily encumbered that no buyer could be found.
Lord Egmont, as he now was styled, was often drunk and neglectful of business as regarded his estate, although a clergyman of his acquaintance thought him a gentleman and intelligent in conversation.