The tranquil life at Huntingdon was destroyed by a sudden blow. On the 28th June, 1767, Mr. Unwin, while riding to church, was thrown from his horse, fractured his skull, and died four days afterwards, The two children were started in life, William was ordained to a curacy; and his sister[1] was soon afterwards married to the Rev. Matthew Powley, Vicar of Dewsbury. It was necessary for Mrs. Unwin to remove, and Cowper determined to go with her, as her behaviour to him had "always been that of a mother to a son," and, moreover, "Mr. Unwin had intimated to his wife his desire that if she survived him, Mr. Cowper might still dwell with her."[2]
A few days after Unwin's death, the Rev. John Newton, Curate of Olney, on his way thither from Cambridge, had stayed at Huntingdon, and called on Mrs. Unwin, at the request of a friend, Much interested both in her and Cowper, he agreed, at their request, to look out for a house for them. He soon found them one at Olney, and they removed thither on the 14th of September, 1767.
The Rev. John Newton, under whose influence Cowper was thus brought, was about five years his senior. He had passed through the strangest vicissitudes of fortune. In his youth he had been a sailor of idle and vicious habits, had been flogged for desertion, and was only prevented from drowning himself by fearing that the lady whom he afterwards married would form a bad opinion of him. He suffered frightful miseries in a slave plantation at Sierra Leone, and after being released was shipwrecked on his way home, and barely saved his life. This event, which he was always wont to call his "Great Deliverance," changed his character altogether. He resolved to lead a new life, and kept the resolution. Looking upon this as a special interposition of Providence on his behalf, he was a Calvinist from that time. He soon became master of a vessel, and for the next four years was engaged on the sea. From this time until his death, he kept a diary, of which the following passage is the opening, dated Dec. 22, 1751:
"I dedicate unto Thee, most blessed God, this clean, unsullied book; and at the same time renew my tender of a foul, blotted, corrupt heart. Be pleased, O Lord, to assist me with the influences of Thy Spirit to fill the one in a manner agreeable to Thy will, and by Thy all-sufficient grace to overpower and erase the ill impressions sin and the world have from time to time made in the other, so that both my public converse and retired meditation may testify that I am indeed Thy servant, redeemed, renewed, and accepted in the sufferings, merit, and mediation of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, honour, and dominion, world without end. Amen."
Then he goes on to detail the holy resolutions which he has made; amongst them is one to set apart a special day "to recommend himself and his concerns, his journey and his voyage," to the blessing of God. He speaks of his devotions with his crew, and ever and anon writes down prayers of intense and unquestionable earnestness. And at the end of his voyage he expresses his thankfulness to God for having prospered him so well. It may not have occurred to the reader to ask what was the business in which he was engaged. But it was the slave-trade,
