The Williams Contract, as it was known, scandalized nationalists (who saw this as an exclusively Portuguese right); Paiva Couceiro declared that the ministers who sanctioned the accord were traitors. His statements did not make any friends; notwithstanding his links to the Royal House, on December 6, 1902 he was transferred to the role of adjunct to the Inspecção do Serviço de Artilharia in Évora. This imposed exile lasted until November 1903, when the Progressita leader José Luciano de Castro, transferred to the Grupo de Baterias a Cavalo de Queluz, where he remained until 1906. But, while in Évora, he became familiar with João Franco and the Partido Regenerador-Liberal. A symbol of this approximation was the speech by João Franco in May 1903, where his ideas about colonial politics corresponded with Paiva Couceiro. In 1905, after general elections on February 12 (37th Legislative Elections) and when it became clear the King Carlos I of Portugal resolved to finally support governmental reforms made by João Franco's government, Paiva Couveiro and other "Africanists" (such as Freire de Andrade, Aires de Ornelas, Ivens Ferraz and João Baptista Ferreira) decide to register as candidates in the Liberal Regenerator Party. The right-wing newspaper, "Alamanque" proclaimed of Paiva Couceiro ""the nobility of his personage and immaculate candor...[was enough that the Portuguese] would never lose their confidence in the future of the race"." He ran in the elections to the 39th Legislature (on August 19, 1906), representing the 15th district in eastern Lisbon (from 1906–1907). In 1906, he was a member of the Comissão Parlamentar do Ultramar ("Parliamentary Commission on Overseas Territories"); between 1806 and 1907, he sat on the Comissão Parlamentar de Administração Pública ("Parliamentary Commission on the Public Administration and also the Comissão Parlamentar da Guerra (Parliamentary Commission on War); his roles on these commission were initially in issues related to the colonies and the military, but grew to include opposition to progressive politics and to the support of issues that were clearly anti-democratic. When discussing the colonies, in particular Angola, he was very passionate, defending that the colonial was "the unique resource to make this small Portugal large/important".