He continued with Smith throughout the commission at Acre and on the coast of Egypt till promoted, on 7 May 1802, to the sloop Cynthia, which he took to England.

He was subjected to repeated examinations as to whether he had not put on shore in France some royalist agents: Georges, Pichegru, Rivière, and others were named.

It was immediately said in England that if he was dead he had been murdered; and, in fact, so little was it believed by the authorities that his name was not removed from the navy list till the autumn of 1807.

After the Restoration Sir Sidney Smith and others made unofficial inquiries in Paris which were claimed to prove that he was murdered.

According to the evidence which Smith collected, the body was found on the bed with the sheet drawn up to the chin, the razor—with which the throat had been cut to the bone—closed, and the hand which grasped it pressing the thigh.

[citation needed] It has also been noted that his letters were in good and determined spirit, and no cause for any great depression was shown.