  Indeed, like Hume, Burke found that there was more money in narrative works and in practical affairs than in philosophy. Burke's earliest writings include A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), and A Vindication of Natural Society (1756). Thereafter he was co-author of An Account of the European Settlements (1757) and began An Abridgement of English History (c.1757–62). From 1758, at least until 1765, he was the principal ‘conductor’ of the new Annual Register. In 1765, Burke became private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham (who had just become First Lord of the Treasury) and was elected to the British House of Commons in the same year. He remained there, with a brief intermission in the Autumn of 1780, for nearly twenty-nine years, retiring in the Summer of 1794. Burke, who was always a prominent figure there and sometimes an effective persuader, gave a great many parliamentary speeches. He published versions of some of these, notably on American Taxation (1774), Conciliation with America (1775), and Fox's East India Bill (1783). These printed speeches, though anchored to specific occasions, and certainly intended to have a practical effect in British politics, were also meant to embody Burke's thought in a durable form. In that respect, they parallel his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), amongst other non-oratorical writings.