In 1826 Weddell offered his services to the Admiralty with a proposal for a return voyage to the high southern latitudes, either in command of an expedition sponsored entirely by the Admiralty, or in ships of his own with the costs defrayed by the Government. The proposal failed to meet the approval of John Barrow, and was turned down. Instead, Weddell returned to trading along the warmer Atlantic coasts. In 1829 he was still master of the Jane, but on a passage from Buenos Aires to Gibraltar the Jane leaked so badly that on arrival at Horta, in the Azores, she was condemned and allowed to founder. Weddell and his cargo were transferred to another ship for the passage to England, but this ran aground on the island of Pico, and Weddell survived only by lashing himself to a rock. The loss of Jane meant financial ruin for Weddell, who was forced to take paid employment as a ship's master. In September 1830 he left England as master of the Eliza, bound for the Swan River Colony, Western Australia. From there he proceeded to Hobart, Tasmania, where in May 1831 he assisted John Biscoe in landing his scurvy-afflicted crew from the Tula. Weddell sailed for England in the Eliza in January 1832 and arrived in the Thames six months later. In London he took up lodgings at 16 Norfolk Street, where he resided in relative poverty and obscurity, apparently supported by a Miss Rosanna Johnstone. He died in September 1834 at the age of forty-seven and was buried in the churchyard of St Clement Danes.
