To settle the matter finally, a ship was despatched to bring Jeffery home, and he arrived at Portsmouth in October, 1810, three years after his adventure in Sombrero, and to find himself the hero of a party. On October 22nd he attended at the Admiralty, where he received his discharge, and had the "R" taken off his name, by which he became entitled to all arrears of pay. The family of Captain Lake made him liberal compensation for the very slight hardships he had undergone, but which in Jeffery's own account and in that of his partisans were magnified enormously.
On the 5th and 6th of February, 1810, a court-martial assembled on board the Gladiator at Portsmouth to try Captain Lake for having abandoned a seaman on a desert and uninhabited island. Captain Lake complained that the witnesses whom he might have summoned to speak for him were away in various ships in different parts of the world. He produced a letter signed by all the officers of the Ulysses, the vessel he then commanded, protesting that he was humane and incapable of doing an act of wanton cruelty.
At this time it was not known whether Jeffery was alive or dead. Captain Lake made a manly defence. "You will be pleased to recollect the evidence of Mr. Spencer, the chief witness on the part of the prosecution, on this point. He himself advised me to get the man out of the ship, and I declare that, by landing him, I thought he would be made more sensible of his want of conduct, and reform in future. I was persuaded at the time that the island was inhabited; in addition to which, I cannot but suppose it within your knowledge that the island is not out of reach of human assistance. I need not state that it is within the track of vessels on particular destinations, and which frequently pass within hail of the island. Jeffery found this to be the case, and there is no reason to doubt but that he was taken off the island; for on a search being made for him there afterwards, one of the witnesses states expressly that not a trace of him was to be found, which I cannot conceive could have been the case if he had perished there, as is most unwarrantably asserted by Thomas. Gentlemen, I have no doubt he was conveyed to America in perfect safety. I myself verily believe he is in England at this moment, consigned (as it were) to the merchants who, perhaps, are keeping him concealed till the edict of the court-martial is known, and then he may be let loose upon me, to seek a compensation in damages by an action at law. The place of his concealment, however, has hitherto eluded the diligence of my agents."
He appealed to the official report made to the Admiralty at the time by Sir A. Cochrane: "Be pleased to consider attentively the statement made by this official communication; contrast it with the letter of Thomas, and then decide whether he was warranted in asserting that Robert Jeffery had perished through the inhumanity of one whom he has thought proper to describe as a 'titled murderer.'"
The court-martial pronounced sentence: "Pursuant to an order from the Right Honourable Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, dated 3rd February instant, and directed to the President, setting forth that a letter had been addressed to their Lordships by the Right Hon. Charles Bathurst, enclosing a letter to him from Mr. Charles Morgan Thomas, dated 24th March, 1809 ... and having heard evidence produced in support of the charge, and by the said Hon. Warwick Lake in his Defence ... the Court is of opinion, That the charge has been proved against the said Hon. Warwick Lake, and doth adjudge him to be dismissed from His Majesty's service; and the said Hon. Warwick Lake is hereby dismissed from His Majesty's service."
In 1836 the Hon. Warwick Lake succeeded to the viscounty, and died in 1848, leaving behind him only two daughters, one unmarried, the other married to a Gloag. He was certainly very hardly treated, and as certainly an utterly worthless scoundrel was exalted into a hero. Jeffery returned to Polperro, where he was received with curiosity. There his antecedents were well known, and the value of his statements of terrible privation taken for what they were worth. Elsewhere he received an enthusiastic ovation. He hired himself out to be "run" by speculators at some of the minor theatres in London as "Jeffery the Sailor." After a few months he returned to Polperro with money enough in his pocket to enable him to purchase a small schooner for the coasting trade.
The speculation did not answer his expectations. He fell into consumption, and died in 1820, leaving a wife and daughter in great penury. He was a mean, not to say a despicable creature, who was used for political purposes, and when he had served these was allowed to drop into his proper insignificance.
Authorities are a Life of Robert Jeffery, published by B. Crosby, 1811. An Account of R. Jeffery, published by J. Pitt, 1811.
A Narrative of the Life of Robert Jeffery, with portrait, 1810.