In November, Lieutenant Jackson completed a new wooden drawbridge across the river to replace the old wooden footbridge that had fallen into disrepair. The new bridge was called Presentment Bridge, but also became known as Monkey Bridge, because of the dexterity required of pedestrians trying to cross the narrow thoroughfare during the busiest hours of the day.
* * *
Raffles set up his Town Committee, with Captain Davis as chair, which met with representatives from the various communities and races, and summoned individuals to give evidence and information before the committee. While they deliberated, Lieutenant Jackson set about the task of reclaiming the land on the west bank of the river. He employed a force of close to three hundred Chinese, Malay, Indian and Javanese labourers to excavate the hill at South Point and deposit the earth into the marsh, and to built up the embankment using crushed stones and cut timbers, until they had raised the ground and formed a quay that ran in a crescent shape seven hundred yards along the river’s edge.
Each morning Raffles, Farquhar, Lieutenant Jackson and George Coleman, now employed in an advisory capacity, were out directing the coolies as they laboured with pickaxes and shovels in the hot sun. Long lines of men, balancing buckets of earth on poles carried over their shoulders, snaked their way down from the hill to the edge of the river, where they deposited their loads into the marsh, and then returned for more. At the end of each day a party of soldiers arrived with a bag of money to pay the labourers.
* * *
At the end of December, Raffles and Sophia moved into the bungalow that George Coleman had built for them on Bukit Larangan. It was a modest affair with plank walls, Venetian windows, and an attap roof, but the sea breezes provided some relief from the oppressive heat of the town. It was about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, and consisted of two parallel halls with front and back verandahs. Two square wings at the back contained the sleeping apartments. Despite his new vigor and enthusiasm, Raffles still suffered from crippling headaches, which laid him out for days on end. He confessed to Sophia that he thought he had not long to live, and that if he were to die in this place, it would give great comfort to his soul if his bones could be buried among the rajahs of the ancient city of Singapura. Sophia told him not to be morbid, that he had years of happy retirement to look forward to, and to the final recognition, she was sure, of his great achievements in the East.
Raffles and Dr Wallich laid out a new Botanical and Experimental Garden at the back of Bukit Larangan, close by the Bras Basah stream, extending nearly fifty acres beyond the original clove and nutmeg plantations that had been laid out by Mr Dunn in the first year of the settlement. Raffles also arranged for the Christian cemetery at the foot of the hill to be relocated to the far side of the hill.
But as the weeks passed his headaches worsened. After an especially severe attack, Dr Montgomerie advised him to depart for England immediately. Raffles declined to do so, insisting that he had important work to complete before he left. But he did write to the governor-general in Calcutta formally requesting to be relieved of his position, and stating that he intended to return to England for the sake of his health, after he had made his final arrangements in Singapore and Bencoolen. In the same letter he described in detail what he considered to be the demonstrated inefficiency and general inadequacy of Colonel Farquhar’s administration of the settlement over the past three years. Colonel Farquhar had not followed his instructions with respect to the location of merchant godowns and government buildings, and had proved himself incompetent in many other matters. Raffles advised the governor-general that he considered Colonel Farquhar totally unequal to the task of administering the rapidly developing commercial asset that Singapore had become.
He also complained that the colonel had been far too indulgent in his relations with the sultan and the temenggong, to the point that he had almost turned native himself. Recalling that Farquhar had a Malay wife, Raffles suggested that the closeness of his relations might create problems for the future development of the settlement:
‘The Malay connection might create an opening for such a combination of peculiar interests as not only to impede the progress of order and regularity but may lay the foundation of future inconvenience which may be hereafter difficult to overcome.’
Raffles asked the governor-general to appoint a replacement for Farquhar as soon as was convenient, and before any further damage was done. He also recommended that the new residency be placed under the direct control of the governor-general, rather than the new Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen. In the meantime he would stay on in Singapore until a new resident was appointed, and then return to Bencoolen to settle up his affairs before returning home.