In the summer of 1813, Sherer was taken prisoner at the Battle of Maya, and was removed to France, where he remained for two years, living chiefly at Bayonne.
He returned to England in 1823 and, encouraged by his success, produced Recollections of the Peninsula, which was also popular and reached a fifth edition.
While in India, Sherer had acquired evangelical religious views, and, anxious to promote them among his comrades in the army, published in 1827 a treatise, Religio Militis.
Of a Life of Wellington, which he contributed to Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, 1830–2, the first volume passed through three editions, and the second through four.
In 1837 he published his final work of fiction, The Broken Font, set in the English Civil War (two volumes), which was less successful.