Part of Zachary Macaulay's series of abolitionist texts in French published by Hachette in the mid-1830s, this pamphlet comprises a number of translations into French of the official British parliamentary papers from the abolition of colonial slavery, as well as extracts from letters written by colonists since the law of emancipation took effect. The procedures by which slavery was abolished in four major colonies (Jamaica, Barbados, British Guiana and Mauritius) are outlined, and the effects of freedom upon the former slave populations. Macaulay attempts to prove that abolition could and ought to be undertaken in the French colonies. He argues in the preface that colonial slavery had already been generally judged a crime that "No Christian or even civilised nation can tolerate for long" (ii).

See the three other texts by Macaulay published in French in the 1830s: 'Faits et renseignemens prouvant les avantages du travail libre sur le travail forcé, et indiquant les moyens les plus propres à hâter l'abolition de l'esclavage dans les colonies européennes' (Hachette, 1835); 'Haïti, ou Renseignemens authentiques sur l'abolition de l'esclavage et ses resultats à Saint-Domingue, et à Guadeloupe' (Hachette, 1835), and 'Tableau de l’esclavage tel qu’il existe dans les colonies françaises' (Hachette, 1835).