On December 22, the British Parliament received the news of rebellion in Lower Canada. The distress occasioned by the financial panic of this year in the United States had spread to Canada. It found vent in agitation against English rule on the part of the French Canadians. On the occasion of the announcement of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, when Te Deums were sung in the churches, the French Canadians signified their disapproval by walking out of church. Louis Joseph Papineau, Speaker of the Lower House, led the opposition to the government proposals regarding the application of the revenues of the province. The home government kept up a narrow "British party" devoted to the so-called interests of the mother country. The majority in the Legislative Council constantly thwarted the resolutions of the vast majority of the popular Assembly. In Upper Canada, a British and official class practically held within its control the government of the province. This class became known as the "family compact." The public offices and lands were parcelled out among themselves and their followers. [Sidenote: Supplies refused] The immediate points in dispute in 1837 were, that the government retained in its service certain officials contrary to the wishes of the Representative Assembly, and insisted on paying their salaries out of colonial funds. The Representative Assembly declined to furnish the supplies, complained of arbitrary infringement of the Constitution, and demanded that the Legislative Council, instead of being nominees of the Crown, should be made elective. [Sidenote: Lord Russell's measures] When intelligence reached England that the Assembly obstinately refused supplies for the payment of public officials, and of the arrears, which up to that time amounted to nearly one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, Lord John Russell carried in the English House of Commons a series of resolutions rejecting the demand for an elective legislative council and other changes in the Constitution, and empowering the executive government to defray the expenses of the public service out of the territorial and casual revenues. [Sidenote: Fils de la Liberte] [Sidenote: Mackenzie] [Sidenote: American filibusters] [Sidenote: Sinking of "Carolina"] [Sidenote: Major Head's measures]