Author John Newton had been quietly mentoring a young politician named William Wilberforce during the rise of the anti-slavery movement in England. Newton’s perspective on slavery, being a reformed slave ship captain, intrigued Wilberforce and gave him powerful evidence of the atrocities of slavery to present to parliament. Newton publicly entered the discussion on abolition with his Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade. In it, he described the Middle Passage as a cramped and dangerous journey that did not allow the passengers enough room to stand, move, or even turn over without difficulty. He states, “They are kept down, by the weather, to breathe a hot and corrupted air, sometimes for a week: this added to the galling of their irons, and the despondency which seizes their spirits when thus confined, soon becomes fatal.”