The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is something wrong in the _chest_." He was found guilty of owing twelve thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly advantageous to him. Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,--sometime after the "John Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months "pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was ever "an agreeable prospect, _barring_ the windows," he was removed to the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from custody in 1825. Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on the Marshal, who said,-- "Mr. ----, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time." "No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to India." In reply to a look of astonished inquiry, he explained,-- "I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for the rest of my days." Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which _poor_ debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings. Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham, where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth."