He became a member of British Parliament representing a borough of Ireland in 1819, but he is one of the shorter-lived of the great economists because he died at age 51 in 1823. His greatest work "Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn on the Profits of Stock" (1815) argued to repeal the corn laws at the time to better spread the wealth, and he followed it with "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" (1817).