This account was expanded in a life of Wellington by W.H. Maxwell. HIs friend Mackie was dead, he wrote, but he could not permit the honour 'indubitably achieved by his lamented friend to be assumed by another, no matter how deserving or distinguished,' A review of the book in "The Times" on 11 July 1842 wrote of the laurels being unfairly placed on the brows of Colonel Gurwood, and Gurwood was deeply hurt at being held up to the world as 'a cheat and impostor'. Gurwood then spent a great deal of time obtaining statements in support of his own account from comrades who had been present at the siege, and in May 1844 he managed to track down M. Bonfilh, the French officer who had taken his party to the Citadel. Bonfilh wrote that he remembered the events clearly and Gurwood's part in them.