In December, 1723, he set sail for England. During the two years he had been in the Indian seas he had accomplished nothing he ought to have done, and done almost everything he ought not to have done. He had been sent out to suppress the pirates and to protect the Company's interests. He had not captured a single pirate ship or rooted out a single pirate haunt. Claiming, as a King's officer, to be exempt from the provisions of the Company's charter, he had indulged in private trade, and had even had dealings with the pirates. He had flouted the Company's authority wherever it existed, and had encouraged others to resist it. Every person who had a dispute with the Company received protection from him. He told the Goa authorities that the Company's vessels were only traders, and therefore not entitled to the salutes they had always received. He had refused to give up the Company's sailors whom he encouraged to desert to his ship. He forbade the Bombay traders to fly British colours, but allowed his own trading friends to do so. He had gone trading to Bengal and Mocha, where there were no pirates; two months and a half he had spent in the Hooghly; three months and a half he had spent at Madras and St. David's for trade purposes; and, when the quarrel between the Bombay authorities and the Portuguese was going on, he gave out that he would send the Goa Viceroy a petticoat, as an old woman, if he did not take every one of the Company's ships. He had quarrelled with all his captains, and one of them, Sir Robert Johnson, owed his death to him. At Surat he had found a discharged servant of the Company, one Mr. Wyche, on whose departure the Governor had laid an embargo till his accounts were cleared. Matthews took him and his eleven chests of treasure on board his ship, in defiance of the Governor's orders, and put him ashore at Calicut, whence he escaped to French territory. From Surat also he carried to England the broker's son, Rustumjee Nowrojee, to worry the Directors. He carried off Mrs. Gyfford, and brought her to England in his ship. His last act on the coast was to call at Anjengo, in order to obtain property she claimed there: but it is probable that he also secured a cargo of pepper. It is small wonder that, on his arrival in England, in July, 1724, the wrath of the Directors was kindled against him, and an account of his misbehaviour was forwarded to the Secretary of State. The naval authorities called on the Directors to produce their witnesses for the charge of trading with the pirates. The difficulty of doing so was obvious, as the witnesses were all under Matthews' command; so the charge was dropped, and the Directors sued him in the Court of Exchequer for infringing their charter by private trading.