In 1546, still, presumably, in the Pelican, he captured a French galley, having on board the Baron St. Blanchard, who appears to have been coming to England on some informal embassy from the King of France.

At the request of the king, on giving his bond for the money, the baron was released, and he returned to France with his servants, "two horses, and twelve mastiff dogs".

Lloyd's statement that Paston captured the Admiral of France and received thirty thousand crowns for his ransom is as incorrect as that "he was the first that made the English navy terrible".

In 1570 he was a magistrate of Norfolk, and a commissioner for the trial and execution of traitors,[5] and in 1587, though a deputy-lieutenant of the county, he was suspected of being lukewarm in the interests of religion.

He died on 18 February 1597, and was buried in the church of Oxnead, where a "stately marble tomb" testifies that Princes he served four, In peace and war, As fortune did command, Sometimes by sea And sometimes on the shore.