John Benson was at the age of 15 "when a strong inclination to travel the seas and visit distant shores" took possession of him. In all he made seven voyages - embarking from Newport RI in the 1760s - successively experiencing his ships' capture by Privateers, imprisonment, shipwreck, two voyages to Africa to purchase slaves, a slave insurrection, and a remarkable vision while sick from an epidemic "which changed completely his views as to the sinfulness of slave-trading, as well as awakened his religious nature with startling power."
