After a session or two in parliament he was made a privy councillor and prime Serjeant-at-law; and from this time he gave a general, though by no means invariable support to the government. In 1767 the ministry contemplated an increase of the army establishment in Ireland from 12,000 to 15,000 men, but the "Augmentation Bill" met with strenuous opposition, not only from Flood, Ponsonby and the habitual opponents of the government, but from the Undertakers, or proprietors of boroughs, on whom the government had hitherto relied to secure them a majority in the House of Commons.