The two kinsmen were travelling companions in 1752, worked together on the Account of the European Settlements in America, which seems to have been written by W. Burke, and joined in befriending Emin the Armenian.
[2] Burke owed his return to parliament as member for Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, on 16 June 1766, to his friendship with Lord Verney, who seems to have been a partner in speculations.
In March 1768 Robert Brudenell was returned in his place, but, as the latter chose another constituency, Burke regained his seat in the following May, and held it until the dissolution in September 1774.
About the time of his disaster, however, their intimacy ceased, and in 1771 Markham, then bishop of Chester, in a letter addressed to Edmund Burke, accused him of saying something in, as it seems, a private conversation with himself which rendered him liable to "a criminal prosecution in a matter of state."
This accusation was part of an attack made by the bishop on Edmund Burke, who in the draft of his reply speaks warmly of his kinsman's character, and of the kindness he had shown him in introducing him to Lord Rockingham, in the resignation of his office, and on other occasions.
[2] Having lost his seat for Great Bedwyn, Burke, in the summer of 1774, contested Haslemere in Surrey, was defeated, and petitioned unsuccessfully, the election being confirmed in May 1775.
[2] Broken in fortune and harassed by judgments against him for debt, Burke vainly sought a place in the East India Company's service.
Lord Cornwallis considered that the sending of him out was ‘an unnecessary job,’ and said in a letter to Lord Rawdon, dated 1789, that he had done him what service he could, but that with Burke service meant putting large sums of money into his pocket, and that if he had done that he would have deserved to be impeached, giving two examples of the ‘extraordinary’ proposals which Burke made for his own advantage, and to which he refused to consent.
In this pamphlet, and in another entitled "An Examination of the Commercial Principles of the late Negotiation", 1761, Burke, who held the office of secretary to Guadeloupe in 1762, strongly advocated the British retention of the island.
[2][6] Besides the share he had in the European Settlements in America, and the pamphlets on the peace negotiations, from 1764 onwards Burke appears occasionally to have written letters on political matters, chiefly under the signature of "Valens", in the London Evening Post and other papers.