Printed during the Quaker teacher and abolitionist Josiah Forster's campaign tour in France , this pamphlet was intended to inform the inhabitants of Nantes about the real nature of the slave trade. By targetting France's main slave trading port, Forster hoped to strike at the heart of the commercial interests in the trade. In his address Forster emphasises that slave trading was not in accordance with Christian teaching, and he calls for other forms of commerce with Africa to replace it. He concedes that slavery still existed in the British colonies, but hopes that this would eventually be abolished.

The address is dated 19 June, 1824.