It would not be additional spam to send a heartfelt apology. You can use that as an opportunity to provide your new e-mail address and let folks know that you will be shutting down the current account.

I don’t believe the hacking was your fault — I would be more concerned with the provider and finding out how it happened so that you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Hacking does happen though — all we can do is our best to avoid it happening again. If your provider cannot explain this to your satisfaction I would close the account and consider moving to a more secure provider.

You have a good idea to only keep those addresses available for those you communicate with on a regular basis. You could always keep the full list off-line in another file in case the need arises. However, e-mail is all about the conversation and relationships — rare is the occasion (such as this one unfortunately) — where you would be e-mailing those you no longer have a relationship with.

So, go ahead — send a humble and sincere apology, note your new address and do what you can to ensure this doesn’t happen again. HTH! ;-)