The failure in July 1803 of the rising in Dublin planned by Anne Devlin, his cousin, and by Robert Emmet, with which he had hoped to coordinate, and the internment of virtually all his extended family, disposed "the Wicklow chief" to accept terms. With his closest lieutenants he was transported to New South Wales, Australia as an unsentenced exile and free man in 1806. In Sydney in 1807, he was twice imprisoned and twice tried, but ultimately acquitted, of plotting an Irish insurrection against the British rule in New South Wales. As a result of the Rum Rebellion in 1808, he was reinstated as a free man in New South Wales. He was appointed Chief of Police in Liverpool, Sydney in 1813. In 1825 due to the alledged non payment of a £100 debt, he was committed to a debtors' prison where he contracted dysentery. He was released on May 24th, 1825. Just three months later he died on the 23rd August, 1825 at the age of 53, never having seen his four youngest children since leaving them in Ireland.