 Following Simcoe's work precipitated by the Chloe Cooley incident, the Assembly passed the first Act Against Slavery in the British Empire in 1793, and the English colonists of Upper Canada took pride in this distinction with respect to the French-Canadian populace of Lower Canada.The Upper Canadians valued their common law legal system, as opposed to the civil law of Quebec, which had chafed them ever since 1763.This was one of the primary reasons for the partition of 1791.