This pamphlet contains extracts from a number of sources testifying to the success of free labour schemes around the Atlantic world - including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Caraccas, Haiti, the Bahamas, and Sierra Leone, collected with the intention of encouraging France to abolish colonial slavery. They are mainly taken from British sources (including reports written by Macaulay himself on Sierra Leone and the British West India colonies), with the exception of two articles by Simonde de Sismondi originally published in the Revue de l'économie politique in December 1833 and February 1834. In his campaign for abolition, according to the foreword, Macaulay was aiming to benefit not only the French colonies, but also British-French relations: "setting an admirable example to the rest of the world of two great peoples working in unison to spread throughout their empires the benefits of freedom and civilisation, and the light of Christianity" (vii).

One of a number of texts by Scottish abolitionist Zachary Macaulay published in Paris by Hachette in the 1830s - the others include a study of post-slavery Haiti, the British colonies since emancipation, and on slavery in the French Caribbean.