Letter

From Mary Whittingham at Potten vicarage to Mary Fletcher in Madeley. 'How little did I think of hearing such an account as dear Miss [Mary] Tooth has informed me of! - What pain and suffering have you passed through during the last year! - you have been in a furnace of affliction indeed ... How very wonderfully have you been enabled ... or else you could not possibly have gone out to the people, and spoken to them the Word of Life; doubtless it must have been very impressive, and affecting to them all.' Spiritual matters are discussed in detail.

'My kind friend Lady St John, a truly pious woman, is afflicted with a complaint of a cancerous nature, it is feared in her breast ... she suffers greatly because it exeedingly affects her nervous system, and thereby it occasions distress to her soul. I beg for her an interest in your prayers.'

Whittingham hopes to hear again very soon from Mary Tooth. 'I am thankful you have one who can be so useful to you at such a time as this. You have been a blessing to many, and the Lord does wonderfully remember the kind offices done to others ...'

She once called on good old Mr [John] Newton 'who wrote the hymns, when he was about 81 [1806] and very feeble. I said, "Sir [do] you feel the presence of God with you?" "No", said he, "though he is with me, but my nervous complaint prevents me from feeling joy etc". I thought it was beautiful, for he could safely and solidly trust in his Master, when he could not see him by the eye of sense as it were, yet he could, by the eye of faith.'

Her son John is now at home with them until he leaves to learn the farming business. This is distressing, as Whittingham does not see how they can find the money to establish him in business.

Her eldest son Samuel is doing well, while her daughter Mariannne is in Bath trying to find a place as a governess. Her two youngest daughters Eliza and Emma are both at home. 'They love to work for the poor, and the eldest is a great blessing to me in domestic matters.' Her husband Richard sends his best wishes.

Whittingham would have written sooner, but she has been occupied with a poor child, burnt almost to death in a nearby cottage. She is much better but is badly scarred.

Notes

• John Newton (1725-1807) was born in London the son of a merchant navy captain. He was educated at a school at Stratford in Essex and went to sea at the age of 11. Newton made a series of six voyages under his father's tutelage between 1736 and 1742. After his father's retirement, it was intended that Newton be sent to work on a sugar plantation in Jamaica but this plan came to nothing and he remained at sea. In 1744 Newton was press-ganged into the Royal Navy but was given the rank of midshipman after his father's intervention. Of an unruly and undisciplined nature, Newton deserted in Plymouth, was recaptured and flogged. He was finally exchanged into a merchant ship, a slaver, and thereafter rose through the ranks and gained his own command in 1750. Newton was a captain in the slave trade until 1755 when he was appointed surveyor of tides at Liverpool. Newton had converted during a storm at sea in March 1748. When he settled in Liverpool with his wife Mary, who he married in 1750, he started to hold bible meetings in his house and entertained George Whitefield. A mild Calvinist by persuasion this did not prevent Newton from engaging in a friendly correspondence with John Wesley and he also became acquainted with other evangelicals such as William Grimshaw and Henry Venn. Newton applied for Holy Orders but was turned down. In 1760 he became the minister of an independent congregation at Warwick and was also invited by Wesley to enter the Methodist itinerancy. At this time Newton wrote a first draft of his autobiography and when this was shown to the evangelical sympathiser Lord Dartmouth, influence was exerted to persuade the Bishop of Lincoln to ordain Newton into the Anglican ministry. In 1764 he was appointed curate of Olney in Buckinghamshire and immediately embarked on a very active and successful parish ministry conducted on evangelical lines. Newton became friendly with the poet William Cowper and the two collaborated in writing The Olney Hymns in 1779. Newton's contribution included for the first time in print the famous works "Amazing Grace", "Glorious things of thee are spoken" and "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds". In January 1780 Newton became the Vicar of St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch in London and remained there for the rest of his life as a powerful influence over many younger Anglican evangelicals. In his later years, Newton was staunchly opposed to the slave trade and bitterly regretted his own part in it. In 1787 he published the influential "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade" and also gave evidence before the Privy Council. Source: DNB