He proceeded with Sir John Frederick Dickson in 1891 to Gibraltar, in order to inquire into the matters connected with the Registry of the Supreme Court.

He was next appointed as the private secretary to Sir Robert Meade, Permanent Under-Secretary of the State for the Colonies, in 1892 he served as the British Agent for Bering Sea Arbitration.

the Prince and Princess of Wales, then the Duke and Duchess of York, on their famous tour around British Empire on board HMS Ophir.

In 1902, again he acted as the secretary to the Colonial Conference, and in 1903, he received thanks of the Canadian Government and the Confederation medal for services rendered in connection with the Alaska Boundary question and other matters.

It is recorded that his Maha Mudaliyar, Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, who happened to be at his bedside, wrote: Sir John was the first Governor of this country to die while his term of office in Sri Lanka and was as yet unfinished, and every circumstance combined to make his death a matter of genuine and universal grief so that it seemed almost a personal loss.