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A Captain of Slaving Ships - and Composer of "Amazing Grace."

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:175.00 USD Estimated At:350.00 - 425.00 USD
A Captain of Slaving Ships - and Composer of  Amazing Grace.
Rare memoir of John Newton, mariner - from age 11, captain of slavers, sailing the Triangle Trade, convert to Evangelicalism as his ship filled with water in a storm - and composer of "Amazing Grace." Captured at age 18 by the Royal Navy and forced into service, he tried to desert; flogged with eight dozen lashes, he transferred to a slave ship bound for West Africa. Cast off the ship there, the white sailor was left with a slave dealer, actually becoming a slave of other slaves. An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of John Newton, "communicated in a series of letters to Rev. Mr. Haweis," 1796 N.Y. printing. 3 x 5 1/2, 248 pp., original full calf, stamped hubs on spine. A dramatic timeline of Newton's travels - and travails - of the 1740s, much of it by sea. "...They brought me back to Plymouth. I walked through the streets, guarded like a felon. My heart was full of indignation, shame, and fear. I was confined two days in the guard house, then sent on board my ship, kept awhile in irons, then publicly stripped and whipped, after which I was degraded from my office, and all my former companions forbidden to show me the least favour, or even to speak to me...Every hour exposed me to some new insult or hardship...." The writer is lifted from his unenviable predicament by his faith, the latter portion of the book a rich epistle to his rediscovery of and faith in the Lord. Newton is credited with inspiring the young William Wilberforce, later becoming his ally in promoting Britain's abolition of the slave trade. Many of Newton's hymns crossed the Atlantic, sung in the Old South during the Second Great Awakening. Contemporary inscriptions on flyleaf, "Newport Library" and "William Osgood's Book." Evidently lacking half-title leaf and final endleaf, average cover and tip wear, with pleasing texture and deep mahogany patination, lower halves of most leaves with toning and eccentric smudging, from a reader's evident habit of following the words with his fingers, but generally satisfactory, and a tome with enormous character and patination. The book, filled with elegant prose, was read repeatedly, as suggested by its period library provenance. No examples on abebooks; WorldCat locates only six copies of this edition. An important, exceptional story. The 2006 motion picture Amazing Grace depicts Albert Finney as Newton, haunted by the ghosts of twenty thousand slaves.