Published by the abolitionist publishers, J. Hatchard & Son, this eye-witness missionary account of slavery in Jamaica was a useful first hand narrative for the growing movement against slavery in the British colonies, and was cited particularly for the positive account it gave of the intellectual capacities of the enslaved. Bickell describes slavery as "one of the greatest evils that ever was inflicted on the human race" (1). Although he tries to establish himself as an impartial witness, implying that the anti-slavery movement in Britain could have got slightly "carried away by the overflowings of humanity" (vi), Bickell was deeply opposed to slavery, and believed that it could not survive much longer in the colonies: "for all good and pious Britons are bound to oppose it, as men and as Christians" (xii).