78 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and EnslavementAfrican coast, he fell violently ill, but recovered. Newton
returned to England in 1752, but then over the next few
years made two more voyages to Africa as a participant in
the slave trade. During the years from 1750–1754, Newton
kept a detailed journal of his day-to-day participation in the
slave trade, which consisted of purchasing slaves all along
the west coast of Africa, then traffi cking the human cargo
to the West Indies or North America for sale. Th roughout
his journal Newton documented in extensive detail just
how systemic, lucrative, and competitive as a commercial
enterprise the African slave trade was. Despite the potential
fi nancial rewards involved, however, his entries reveal that
the buying and selling of slaves was fraught with danger as
well as disease, poor weather, and the constant threat of in-
surrection by both the ship’s crew and African captives.
In 1754, due to a deterioration in health, Newton quit
the slave trade and maritime work in general. Aft er settling
in Liverpool in 1755 to take up a civil service appointment
as a tide surveyor, a post he held until 1760, he applied to
become a clergyman in the Church of England, but was at
fi rst unsuccessful. Aft er serving for a brief period as a Non-
conformist minister, in 1763, he befriended the evangeli-
cal aristocrat Lord Dartmouth, who used his infl uence to
enable Newton to be ordained as an Anglican clergyman.
Over the course of his professional life as a minister, New-
ton served congregations in both Olney, Buckinghamshire,
and later in London. More important, for the beginning of
what later became the Anglo-American abolition move-
ment, Newton’s recollections of his years as a slave trader,
published as An Authentic Narrative (1764), and Th oughts
upon the African Slave Trade (1788), played a crucial role
in convincing infl uential late-18th-century members of the
British establishment, like William Wilberforce, Charles
Simeon, and Hannah More, of their moral and religious ob-
ligations to convince the British public of the urgent need to
support the passing of legislation that would make it a crime
to participate in the international slave trade. In addition,
Newton wrote the lyrics to “Amazing Grace” in 1772. Th e
hymn became an anthem, of sorts, for advocates of human
rights and justice even as late as the 21st century.
John Newton spent his fi nal years serving his congre-
gation at St. Mary Woolnoth in London, and died on De-
cember 21, 1807.
See also: Abolition, Slave Trade; Atlantic Slave TradeJohn W. Clarke, Jr.propensities for sin were increasing. Before the age of 16,
despite a number of attempts at moral self-reform (the fi rst
time as a result of a serious riding accident, another time
due to the drowning of a friend on a British man-of-war
on which Newton was also supposed to have sailed), he fell
into further moral decay.
During the next few years, Newton vacillated between
nominal attempts at religious observance and licentious be-
havior. In 1743, aft er returning from a voyage in the Medi-
terranean, Newton’s father was able, through connections,
to procure for his son a promotion to midshipman aboard
a naval vessel that was assigned to patrol the English coast
just before the outbreak of hostilities between France and
Britain during the War of the Austrian Succession. Newton
deserted before HMS Harwick was to sail on a return voy-
age to the West Indies, but was captured by the military,
returned to his vessel, and stripped of all vestiges of rank
and privilege.
It was aft er arriving in Madeira that Newton fi rst inad-
vertently entered the slave trade when he managed to talk
his way into joining a slave-trading ship bound for Sierra
Leone. His continued profl igacy onboard led to a falling
out with the captain, and instead of continuing on the
second part of the voyage to the West Indies, he remained
on the African coast, becoming a servant to a prosperous
slave trader who lived with an African woman. Newton
claimed that he suff ered tremendous abuse and countless
indignities at the hands of both the woman and the slave
trader. Within a year, however, the master consented to re-
lease him from his employment, and Newton went to work
for another slave trader under far better conditions. In
later life, aft er Newton became an active leader in the fi ght
for the abolition of African slavery throughout the British
Empire, he looked back upon the 18 months that he spent
in wretched servitude as an important fi rsthand experience
of the tremendous physical and emotional dislocation and
barbarity that resulted from his embrace of his role as a
slave trader.
Soon aft er Newton’s reversal of fortune, though, his
father, upon hearing that his son was not well, sent a ship
to the African coast with orders to fi nd Newton and re-
turn him to England. Aft er almost perishing in a violent
storm on the return voyage to England aboard the Grey-
hound, Newton underwent his fi rst conversion experi-
ence. He underwent a second conversion experience when,
aft er marrying and then commanding a slave ship to the