In some respects, the accession of Queen Victoria took place at a fortunate time. England was at peace with all foreign Powers; her colonies were undisturbed, with the exception of Canada, where some long-seated discontents were on the eve of breaking out into a rebellion which for a while proved formidable; and, about three years before, slavery had ceased in all British possessions. At home, several of the more difficult questions of politics and statecraft had been settled, either permanently or for a time, in the two preceding reigns; so that large sections of the people, formerly disloyal, or at least unfriendly to the existing order, were well disposed towards a form of government which no longer appeared in the light of an oppression. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, in 1828, had conciliated the Dissenters; the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities, in 1829, had abolished one of the grievances of Ireland. By the Reform Bill of 1832--the temporary defeat of which had very nearly plunged the country into revolution--the middle classes had obtained a considerable accession of political power. The sanguinary rigour of the criminal laws had been partially mitigated; and, in September, 1835, an Act was passed for reforming the government of municipal corporations. The great Constitutional question, touching on the relation of the sovereign towards the Cabinet, had been virtually settled, during the same year, in harmony with those Parliamentary claims which were at any rate in accordance with the current of popular feeling. France--the great hotbed of revolution--was comparatively tranquil; and nothing in the general state of the world betokened the advent of any serious troubles.