Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade

Following are selections from "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade" by John Newton, a slave captain in the 1700's. Newton stopped directing slave ships for personal medical reasons, but later recognized the horror of the slave trade.



The Works of the Rev. John Newton






If I attempt, after what has been done, to throw my mite into the public stock of information, it is less from an apprehension that my interference is necessary, than from a conviction that silence, at such a time and on such an occasion, would, in me, be criminal.



...rather unsuitable to my present character as a believer of the Gospel, to consider the abortion trade merely in a political light.




...the dreadful mental, emotional, and spiritual effects of this trade upon the minds of the doctors, nurses, and mothers who are engaged in it. There are, doubtless, exceptions; and I would willingly except myself. But, in general, I know of no method... which has so direct a tendency to efface the moral sense, to rob the heart of every gentle and humane disposition...




A boyfriend, telling her he loved her, got her pregnant with a "fine child", just several weeks old, in her womb. In the night, worry for the future overwhelmed the boyfriend, and disturbed his sleep. In great anger, he swore, that she must have an abortion. At length, he rose up, and drove her to the clinic. The worry was silenced indeed, but it was not so easy to calm the woman... he was obliged to bear the sound of her cries, till he could leave her for another woman.
I am persuaded, that every tender mother, who feasts her eyes and her mind when she contemplates the infant in her arms, will understand the pain of an abortion. - But why do I speak of one child, when we have heard and read a melancholy story, too notoriously true to admit of contradiction, of more than a hundred thousand children, thrown out...




Perhaps someone may suggest that such treatment would indeed be cruel, to infants; but infants not yet born are fetuses, tissue, that have no idea of life or pain. I dare contradict them in the strongest terms. I have lived long, and conversed with doctors, and carried a fetus in my womb. The unborn experience life, and can experience pain and death.





After a careful perusal of what I have written, weighing every paragraph distinctly, and knowing the offense that I may cause some of my friends, I can find nothing to retract.




Though I will not ever condemn an individual person for their mistakes - For I am full of awful mistakes and gross sin, and am only saved and whole by the blood of Jesus Christ, not by any good thing in me - I cannot be afraid of offending many, by declaring the truth.

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Approach, my soul, the mercy seat,
Where Jesus answers prayer;
There humbly fall before His feet,
For none can perish there.

Thy promise is my only plea,
With this I venture nigh;
Thou callest burdened souls to Thee,
And such, O Lord, am I.

Bowed down beneath a load of sin,
By Satan sorely pressed,
By war without and fears within,
I come to Thee for rest.

Be Thou my Shield and hiding Place,
That, sheltered by Thy side,
I may my fierce accuser face,
And tell him Thou hast died!

O wondrous love! to bleed and die,
To bear the cross and shame,
That guilty sinners, such as I,
Might plead Thy gracious Name.

“Poor tempest-tossèd soul, be still;
My promised grace receive”;
’Tis Jesus speaks—I must, I will,
I can, I do believe.

"Approach My Soul, The Mercy Seat" by John Newton
Ol­ney Hymns (1779)