In 1801 under the Governor-General Lord Wellesley a commissioner was sent from the High Court of Bengal to Bencoolen with authority to suspend the Governor and his two councillors and reduce the number of functionaries, prohibit private trading, and reduce the Settlement to a dependency of Bengal.
It appears that the commission was executed in a tactless. The garrison of Fort Marlboro was assembled in arms and the commission read in public.
A considerable outcry resulted from this insult, some of the dismissed received compensation, while others were dis- missed without pay and being bound to the place became im- poverished. These conditions caused great discontent which was increased among the natives by the action of Resident Parr, who was sent from Bengal to succeed the late Governor.
He proceeded to reform the native administration of justice without consulting the native chiefs, assuming a despotic power over them. To the cultivation of pepper he added coffee and made both compulsory.
Moreover being used in his former position in Bengal to absolute obedience he personally insulted many of the most important natives.
Before long a conspiracy against his life was deliberated, this was known but Parr although warned would pay no attention.
On a determined night his house at Mt. Felix—some three miles south of the Fort—was attacked by a band of natives. who overpowered the guard, then entered the room where Parr lay ill and decapitated him, in an attempt to defend him his wife and secretary Murray were wounded, but no attempt was made on their lives nor on the lives of other inhabitants of Bencoolen.
The attack was a personal matter.
The action of the Government relative to this is described in Lady Raffles's Memoir:—
The measures that followed were of a doubtful cast.
As soon as it was discovered that the designs of the people were confined to the assasination, and not directed against the settlement generally, search was made for the perpetrators of the act. Rewards were offered for the apprehension, alive or dead, of the assassins.
It was thought unsafe to touch the chiefs. Several of the people were blown from the mouths of guns. As the danger diminished, the spirit of indignation and revenge seem- ed to have increased. An order was given to burn and destroy
every village within a certain distance, and the work of de-
