After leaving the professional army he served as a militia officer in Ireland, and sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom for twelve years before taking up a diplomatic post.
His mother Theodosia was a daughter and co-heir of Robert Hawkins Magill, who sat in the Irish House of Commons for County Down from 1724 to 1745.
His mother had inherited estates at Gilford and Rathfriland which gave the family a small electoral interest there under her management.
The sitting MP Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (son of Lord Londonderry) was a close confidant of the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, and was obliged to seek re-election when he was appointed as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.
Castlereagh had alienated the dowager Lady Downshire, the county's biggest landowner, who determined to contest the by-election with her own candidate.
[1] Meade resigned his seat in 1817 to make way for Lord Arthur Hill, and was appointed British consul-general in Spain, an office he retained until its abolition in 1832.