Vernet wrote to Lieutenant Smith offering advice, which was gratefully received and acted upon. Smith repeatedly urged Vernet to return to Port Louis but as Vernet became increasingly involved in the territorial dispute with the government in Buenos Aires all communications ceased and no more accounts were sent. An approach to Lieutenant Robert Lowcay, who had succeeded Lieutenant Smith as British resident, to retrieve his property was rebuffed but later he was requested to remove his property as the British government could not be responsible for it.