Steadily supporting his party, he became President of the Board of Trade in 1866, Secretary of State for India in 1867, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1874. In 1870, during the interval between these last two appointments, he was the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, North America's oldest company (established by English royal charter in 1670), when they sold the Northwest Territories to Canada. Northcote was one of the commissioners for the settlement of the Alabama Claims with the United States, culminating with the Treaty of Washington in 1871.