Spanish forces congregated on the mainland opposite Amelia, and MacGregor and most of his officers decided on 3 September 1817 that the situation was hopeless and that they would abandon the venture. MacGregor announced to the men that he was leaving, explaining vaguely that he had been "deceived by my friends." He turned over the command to one of his subordinates, a former Pennsylvania congressman named Jared Irwin, and he boarded the "Morgiana" with his wife on 4 September 1817 with an angry crowd looking on and hurling insults at him. He waited offshore for a few days, then left on the schooner "Venus" on 8 September. Two weeks later, the MacGregors arrived at Nassau in the Bahamas, where he arranged to have commemorative medallions struck bearing the Green Cross motif and the Latin inscriptions "Amalia Veni Vidi Vici" ("Amelia, I Came, I Saw, I Conquered") and "Duce Mac Gregorio Libertas Floridarium" ("Liberty for the Floridas under the leadership of MacGregor"). He made no attempt to repay those who had funded the Amelia expedition. Irwin's troops defeated two Spanish assaults and were then joined by 300 men under Louis-Michel Aury, who held Amelia for three months before surrendering to American forces, who held the island "in trust for Spain" until the Florida Purchase in 1819.