John newton biography slave trade

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By the time he began ministering in Olney, Newton was increasingly aware of the gross inhumanity of the slave trade.

Newton became an ally of William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the African slave trade. Website combines with St Margaret Lothbury. Later, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa.

The ship carried goods to Africa and traded them for slaves to be shipped as part of the Middle Passage in the Caribbean and North America.

In 1780, Newton moved to the City of London as rector of St Mary Woolnoth Church, where he contributed to the work of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which was formed in 1787. I did it ignorantly.'

By 1754, when Newton left the trade, there was still no public outcry against slavery. Clowe gave him to his wife, Princess Peye of Sierra Leone, who abused and mistreated Newton just as much as she did her other slaves.

One of Newton's New Year's hymns, Amazing Grace (from 1 Chronicles 17), has since entered The Guinness Book of Records for having the largest number of different recordings—over 3,000.

Cambridge University Library, Thornton Papers, Add 7674 and Add 7828. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking.

After some months receiving Christian teaching and fellowship in London, Newton began work as Surveyor of Tides in Liverpool in August 1755.

As Wilberforce suffered disappointments in the House, Newton sought to console him: 'The situation of the slaves, and your exertions for their relief, are, if I may so say, palpable subjects—they are felt by all, where sordid interest has not benumbed—and therefore your name will be revered by many, who are little affected by the love of the Great Philanthropist.

In response, Newton began praying for God's mercy, after which the storm died. He is noted for being author of the hymns "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken". Letters from John Newton to David Jennings, 1750-1754, 1760, including an appeal to rewrite the 1662 Prayer Book prayers in plain English for sailors! Nor could I expect a blessing on my Ministry—tho' I should speak of the sufferings of Jesus, till I was hoarse.' Then he quoted from Genesis 4:10, 'And he said, What hast thou done?

If therefore you meet with some unkind reflections and misrepresentations, from men of unfeeling and mercenary spirits, you will bear it patiently, when you think of Him, who endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself.'

With tremendous opposition to abolition coming from the commercial world, where interest lay in the continuation of slavery, it was providential that Newton's church was right next door to the city banks in Lombard Street.

See Preface for their indignation that in Clarkson's History of Abolition (1808) he wrongly supposed that he had introduced Newton to Wilberforce and that in his Strictures (1838) 'Mr Newton's name is silently omitted.'

Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Samuel, The Life of William Wilberforce (London: 1838)