This pamphlet by Botelho, who was the former governor of Mozambique and the author of a number of books on Portugal's West Africa colonies, is dedicated to Portuguese commerce. Botelho argues in favour of the abolition of the slave trade in order to respect the human rights and "outraged humanity" (vii) of the Africans. He refers to the work of established British and French abolitionists including Ramsay, Clarkson, Raynal, Montesquieu and Condorcet. Classic abolitionist arguments are put forward against the slave trade, following the tripartite structure of the description of the slave trade's impact on Africa, the middle passage, and the slave's arrival in the Americas.