shape of complaint but the want of more ground to build on'. However, when Raffles returned in October 1822, he was furious to discover his ideas had been neglected and that moreover local vices, such as the trading of opium and slave-trading, were being tolerated. He then dismissed Farquhar, who first refused to leave and later sued Raffles for tyrannical behaviour. Stabbing of Farquhar On 11 March 1823, as Farquhar walked into his garden, Sayid Yasin, a man from the established Malay community in Singapore, stabbed him with a kris. Sayid was prevented from completing his task only by the timely arrival of Farquhar's servants, who killed him immediately. The stabbing was not fatal. The European settlers assumed immediately that Sayid must have been acting in the name of the Temenggong Abdul Rahman, but that was not true. Sayid and Farquhar then had a semi-private dispute; when Sayid was proven unable to pay his debts, Farquhar sent him to gaol. That fate was humiliating to Sayid and so he sought revenge. Raffles argued that an attack on an official should be met with an exemplary punishment and called for Sayid's corpse to be put in chains in an iron cage and exhibited publicly at Tanjong Malang for a fortnight. Sayid's grave at Tanjong Pagar, however, would soon become a shrine and remained a place of pilgrimage for many years, making many Europeans think that Raffles had endangered their lives by needlessly antagonizing the Malays. Departure from Southeast Asia The conflicts which arose during Raffles' final stay in Singapore led to Farquhar's dismissal on 1 May 1823, to be succeeded as Resident by Dr John Crawfurd without the knowledge of Farquhar himself. He remained in Singapore after that for a few months. At a farewell dinner with the principal merchants and British inhabitants on 27 December 1823, Lt Col William Farquhar was presented with a plate valued at 3000 sicca rupees as a farewell gift. The Chinese community of the settlement gifted Farquhar with an ornate silver epergne bearing crests, a Latin inscription, and the hallmark "1825". Shortly after, he finally departed from Singapore for Malacca, Penang and Calcutta en route back home to England. Farquhar's popularity with the Asian and the European community of Singapore was attested to by Munshi Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, in his Hikayat Abdullah. One example was the moving account of Farquhar's departure from Singapore at