subject of his thesis was Cold (De frigore). The title description of his thesis is: Disputatio medica, inauguralis, de frigore ... - Edinburgi : Balfour et Smellie, 1780. Early in 1781 he returned to Carolina to put his family's affairs in order. He was "at the same time an officer in a corps of volunteers; a printer, a bookseller, and a merchant, a trustee for some of his father's friends in England for the management of affairs of considerable importance in Carolina; and on one occasion exercised, at the instance of the Colonel Commandant of the militia, the office of Judge Advocate, in conducting a prosecution in a general court martial of militia officers." When the British withdrew from Charleston in December 1782, he traveled to St. Augustine, Florida. There he published the East Florida Gazette, the first weekly newspaper printed in Florida. Other publications during the British period of Florida included the Address of the principal inhabitants of East Florida. He returned to England in 1784 to practice medicine. In 1790 he was appointed one of the Physicians to the Finsbury Dispensary, and remained so until 1798. In 1793 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1798 he was elected Assistant Physician to St Thomas's Hospital; and in 1800 became one of the Physicians. From about 1800, his health was uncertain, and he led a more limited life which was nevertheless fairly productive in medical research. Wells was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1814. His proposers were William Miller, Lord Glenlee, John Playfair, and Baron Hume nephew of David Hume the philosopher. In the same year the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal for his Essay on Dew. He died on 18 September 1817 at Serjeant's Inn in London, after suffering symptoms of heart malfunction (auricular fibrillation). He is buried at St Bride's Church. His parents, Robert and Mary Wells, are buried nearby. A tablet was erected by Louisa Susannah Wells "as a tribute of duty to her parents and of affection to her brother." Wells' recognition of natural selection Wells was the elder of three British medical men who formulated evolutionary ideas in the period 1813–1819. He was, arguably, the most successful in this endeavour; the others were James Cowles Prichard and William Lawrence. In 1813 a paper by Wells was read before the Royal Society; it was