William Edward Maxwell Prior to arriving in the Gold Coast was the Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settlements (Malay) in 1892, and was acting governor from September 1893 to January 1895.
In 1895, Maxwell was promoted to the governorship of the Gold Coast. Under his governorship the British declared war on the Asante Empire, the fourth Anglo-Ashanti War, known as the "Second Ashanti Expedition" in 1895. He fired a shot across the bow by sending an ultimatum to Asantehene, Prempeh I to accept British Protection and a resident in Kumasi or face war.
Following the Asantehene’s refusal to accept a resident, he used the Treaty of Fomena signed by the Asantes in 1874, but whose terms were widely considered as absurd and unenforcable, as a basis to invoke war. When the Asantehene Prempeh I could not meet the terms, Maxwell had him arrested against all convention, together with his mother, father, brother, uncles and a dozen advisors. They were later exiled to the Seychelles, not returning to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) until the 1924.