Of this trade the central point in the West Indies was Barbadoes then, as now, a British Island. The voyages were from England to Barbadoes, thence to New York or Boston, and thence back to England. Hence the continual refeience in the accounts aiul letters of that day to the "news from home via Barbardoes." Precisely when John Kichbell left England is not known. He was a merchant in Charlestown, Massachusetts, according to Savage's Genealogical Dictionary in 1648. In an inventory of the estate of Robert Gibson of Boston, dated the lltb of August 1(55!), aj)pears this item, " due from Mr. John Kichbell for wages and wine £30, 4, 0, under date of 8th August l(55t).' The next year 1657 he was apparently in the Island of Barbadoes. Prior to this latter date he was in the island of St. Christopher's, where he received from his mother-in-law JVIargery Parsons certain goods formerly delivered and {)aid unto me by Mrs. Margery Parsons upon the Island of St. Christopher's."

When in Barbadoes he met with two other Englishmen, Thomas Modiford a resident of that island, and William Shari)e of Southampton in England. The three entered into an agreement to undertake a business which the oppressive navigation laws of England tempted, and practically compelled, many Englishmen and Colonists to go into. These laws increased in extent, and vigorously enforced by Cromwell, bore harshly upon England's "Plantations in foreign parts" at thattime just beginning to exist. Then began that illicit contraband trade in America which continued and increased from that time during the whole colonial period. And which proved, in conse(iUcnce of the very stringent measures adopted by England late in the eighteenth century to sup[)rcss it, thcreljy in juring the business interests of the colonics, one of the potent, if not the 171 ost potent, of the causes which produced that great event, the American Revolution.