The son of Woodbine Parish, of Bawburgh Old Hall, Norfolk, a major in the Light Horse Volunteers, and educated at Eton College, he took up his first diplomatic post in 1814, becoming involved in events immediately following the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. In 1815 he went with the expedition that restored the Kingdom of Naples to the House of Bourbon after the defeat of Joachim Murat, then returned to Paris as a secretary with Lord Castlereagh's embassy that drafted the 1815 Treaty of Paris.