In the falling and clearing your ground save all your principal timber for pipe stands and clapboard and knee timber.'' Lastly, he is instructed to " advise us, or either of us, how affairs stand with you, what your wants are, and how they may be most advantageously employed by us, for the life of our business will consist in the nimble, quiet, and full correspondence with us." There can be no doubt that all this was with a view to procuring facilities for contraband traffic. The navigation laws, at that time as throughout the colonial period, were extremely burdensome, and large profits were to be made in evading them. Although no direct evidence exists that the Mamaroneck shores were utilized to this end, we think it highly probable that some illicit trade found its destination there. It is a fact that Richbell's lands, unlike those of Thomas Pell and Disbrow and his associates, were not taken up to any considerable extent by bona fide colonists for many years. Yet he was a poor man, always in debt, and could not afford to let his property lie idle. As late as 1671 a warrant was issued by Governor Lovelace " for ye fetching Mr. John Richbell to town [New York City] a prisoner," wherein it was recited that " John Richbell, of Mamaroneck," was " a prisoner under arrest for debt in this city, from which place he hath absented himself contrary to his engagement." It may hence justly be remarked that, on the other hand, he could hardly have been engaged in any very extensive or remunerative "nimble" business. Before buying the Mamaroneck tract, Richbell had become an inhabitant ofLong Island, residing at Oyster Bay. On the 5th of September, 1660, he purchased Lloyd's Neck, on that island, for which on December 18, 1665, he obtained a patent from Governor Nicolls.