Hi Ted. Actually, I have know for a long time that Newton was a slave trader, it's just that I believed he had written ths song right after the dramatic conversion at sea and then given up slave trading in response to that conversion. (Incidentally, you'll find that I am not the only one who has fallen prey to believing this myth.) I only later learned that he kept up the slave trade until he couldn't any more. That's not the Newton I thought we all knew and loved.

I hope you'll forgive me for not having all these facts down earlier. And I'll forgive you for making assumptions about my state of knowledge.