"My youthful years were spent [in the slave trade] in Africa, and I ought to take my degrees (if I take any) from thence."

Seattle Pacific University Archives

     "I have been hurt by 2 or 3 by letters directed to D^r. Newton.  I beg you to inform my friends in Scotland as they come in your way, that after a little time, if any letters come to me, addressed to D^r. Newton I shall be obliged to send them back unopened.  I know no such person, I never shall, I never will, by the Grace of God.

     "Do not think I am displeased with you or any of my kind friends, who mean me kindness and honour by such an address.  I only beg for my peace sake, that it may not be repeated.

     "I have been informed that a College in America, I think in the New Jersey, has given me the Honory degree of Doctor.  So far as this mark of their favour, indicates a regard to the Gospel truths which I profess, I am much pleased with it.  But as to the title itself I renounce it heartily; nor would I willingly be known by it, if all the Universities in Europe can conferred it upon me.  My youthful years were spent in Africa, and I ought to take my degrees (if I take any) from thence.  Shall such a compound of misery & mischief as I then was, be called Doctor?  Surely not."

     Newton, John, Letter from John Newton to John Campbell, June 2, 1792. Newton/Campbell Letters 19.  https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/newton_campbell/19/.  See also Letters and conversational remarks, by the late Rev. John Newton, rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-street, London: during the last eighteen years of his life, ed. John Campbell (New York:  S. Whiting & co., theological and classical booksellers, Paul & Thomas, printers, 1811), 5-6.  It would be fun to track documentation of this honorary Doctor of Divinity down from the side of Princeton University.