Abdullah Muhammad Shah II, the Sultan of Perak who reigned for only two years, was exiled to Seychelles near mainland Africa in 1876, because he was suspected of clandestinely engaging in the murder of James W. W. Birch, the first British Resident in Perak.
In the 1850s, no sooner did Sultan Abdullah’s father pass away, than the struggle for royal power began in Perak, a place where the British had been coveting its rich tin ore. The fight for tin ore plagued Perak throughout the following two decades. Different royal power factions aided and abetted different Chinese gangs, whilst the constant turbulence affected the trade among the Straits Settlements. It forced Britain to abandon its non-intervention policy on the Federated Malay States, so as to take direct control of the tin ore.
In 1874, Sultan Abdullah signed the well-known Pangkor Engagement on Pangkor Island, accepting the British Resident (a political agent) assigned by the British colonial government, in exchange for the British support for his seizure of the royal power. James Wheeler Woodford Birch (1826-1875) was ergo appointed as the Resident of Perak in November 1874. One year later, Birch was assassinated by his attendant when he was showering aboard the ship anchored to the bank of the Perak River. Having reason to believe that Sultan Abdullah was one of the conspirators who masterminded the assassination, the British colonial government relegated him to a prince and exiled him to Seychelles in 1877, a place where the British government jailed political prisoners in that period.