Press reports of the Amelia Island affair were wildly inaccurate, partly because of misinformation disseminated by MacGregor himself. His sudden departure, he claimed, was because he had sold the island to Aury for $50,000. Josefa gave birth to their first child in Nassau on 9 November 1817, a boy named Gregorio. The owner of the "Venus" was an ex-captain of the British Corps of Colonial Marines named George Woodbine. He drew MacGregor's attention to the British Legions being raised by the Latin American revolutionaries in London, and suggested that he could recruit and command such a force himself. MacGregor was excited by the idea of leading British troops again after years in command of colonials, tribesmen, and miscellaneous adventurers. He sailed for home with Josefa and Gregorio and landed in Dublin on 21 September 1818, and from there made his way back to London.