If you have a lot of patience and a sub to Findmypast you can find his entries in the quarterly returns from the prison hulks at Bermuda. For example, on the return ending 1 Dec 1848, he was on the hulk Dromedary. It records that this was his 14th quarterly report (he had been there 3 and a half years), he was healthy, his conduct in the quarter had been good and his conduct in the previous musters was assessed as good.
You need patience because the entries (there are 29 for him which include the ones in UK) all have only his year of birth and conviction in the top level results and the hits are not all in date order although cross referencing the National Archives references in the transcriptions helps. You also have to flick backwards through the pages once you have his entry to find which hulk he was on as one register has a number of hulks and it doesn't say at the top of each page which one it it is. It should be possible to track his complete journey through the system from conviction to release.*** My great grandfather was there, on a different hulk, at the same time and it was possible to track him via hulks in UK to Bermuda until he returned home after 7 years of a ten year sentence.
Debra finds him leaving Bermuda in 1850 which could have been the first leg of his journey home having had about a year or so of his sentence remitted (a normal occurrence). Unlike those who went to Australia, there was no intention of them staying in Bermuda, they worked to build the naval base and were then sent away from the island. Do you find him back in UK in 1851 or later?
Lots of good stuff to read here
http://www.bermuda-online.org/rnd.htm and here
https://issuu.com/penandsword/docs/prisonersinparadisemaxD
*** Sorry, that sounds awfully complicated, it isn't, just not easy to describe! Send me a PM if I can help further.
