This pamphlet argues that late eighteenth-century abolitionism had paved the way for an increasingly radical political culture in France, culminating in the revolution in 1789. The egalitarian principles of the Amis des Noirs formed a basis for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, while the continuing transatlantic slave trade is described as "counter-revolutionary" and anti-patriotic (4). Pepin suggests that the slave trade was part of a wider pattern of abuses under the Ancien Regime, and that it had been allowed to get out of hand, the French traders being "seduced" and "led astray" by the bad example of other slave trading powers like Britain and the Netherlands (5). He calls for an end to the French slave trade, "a crime of lese-constitution" (5), and argues that France, as "the first to raise the flag of universal liberty" (14) should set an example for other nations to follow.

Dated April 1791. Signed "M. Pepin, Citoyen Actif" (14).