Being clearly unsuited to copying and book-keeping work however, he was soon more usefully employed by Torlonia in dealing with the many English-speaking visitors to Rome, who sought the banker's services.

[7] Maceroni became a Colonel of Cavalry and served as aide de camp to Joachim Murat, the King of Naples during the Napoleonic Wars (later writing his biography)[8] and fought with the Spanish insurgents in 1822-23 during the Trienio Liberal.

After a time in Constantinople helping the Turks fight the Russians, he returned to London in 1831 and joined forces with Gurney's former employee, carpenter John Squire.

To meet the terms of the Belgian and French patents he had negotiated earlier, he shipped his two remaining carriages to Brussels and Paris in the care of the Italian speculator Colonel d'Asda.

In 1835, Maceroni published a book on road steam power and tried to raise new capital, but a railway investment panic in 1837 doomed his chances and in 1841 the disclosure of serious mismanagement ended with the seizure of all his assets.