The Greyhound was tossed about like a child’s toy boat. The sky became completely dark.the wind strengthened to gale force.and whipped up the sea into a turbulent tempest. On the journey back to England we sailed into a massive storm. There was a fierce struggle before I was freed, but once I was on board the Greyhound I began to feel safe. I wrote a letter to my father asking for help and he immediately sent a ship, called the Greyhound, to rescue me. I fell ill.so ill that even the slaves felt pity for me. It wasn’t much better for me: the tiny amount of food I was given wasn’t enough to keep a bird alive let alone a man. The slaves were kept in chains below deck and spent the voyage in appalling conditions.
Life on board the slave-ship was worse than anything I had ever experienced. I started disobeying orders, and to teach me a lesson the captain sent me to work on a ship transporting Africans to other countries, where they were bought by landowners to work as slaves. I became a bully and treated people badly, as though they weren’t people at all but just objects with no feelings. To survive I had to get tough like the other sailors. The work was difficult and if you made a mistake you were punished severely. I didn’t want to go, but I had no choice.Ī sailor’s life was a brutal one. When I was eleven he said I was old enough to be a sailor and go to sea. My mother died when I was just six and my father was very strict. Most children didn’t go to school but instead were sent to work for twelve hours a day, sometimes longer. It was a time when life was hard and often cruel. I was born in 1725 in the busy streets of London. People who know me now, think of me as a good man.but if they had known me when I was young.well, perhaps they would think differently.
I am an old man of eighty, which is a good age to reach, but when I look back on my life.well, I’m not happy about some of the things I’ve done. My name is John Newton and I want to tell you my story.
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