an to group themselves in hostile
camps, at the strident tones of Paine's cry for a graduated Income Tax.
Is it surprising that the sight of the free institutions of France and
of the forced economy of the Court of the Tuileries should lead our
workers to question the utility of the State-paid debaucheries of
Carlton House, and of the whole system of patronage and pensions? Burke
and Pitt had pruned away a few of the worst excrescences; but now they
saw with dismay the whole of the body politic subjected to remorseless
criticism by those whose duty was to toil and not to think or question.

This was a new departure in eighteenth-century England. Hitherto working
men had taken only a fleeting and fitful interest in politics. How
should they do so in days when newspapers were very dear, and their
contents had only the remotest bearing on the life of the masses? The
London mob had bawled and rioted for "Wilkes and Liberty," but mainly
from personal motives and love of horse-play. Now, however, all was
changed; and artisans were willing to sacrifice their time and their
pence to learn and teach a political catechism, and spread the writings
of Paine. Consequently the new Radical Clubs differed widely from the
short-lived County Associations of 1780 which charged a substantial fee
for membership. Moreover, these Associations expired in the years
1783-4, owing to the disgust at Fox's Coalition with Lord North. We are
therefore justified in declaring that English democracy entered on a new
lease of life, and did not, as has been asserted,[38] merely continue
the movement of 1780. The earlier efforts had been wholly insular in
character; they aimed at staying the tide of corruption; their methods
were in the main academic, and certainly never affected the great mass
of the people. Now reformers were moved by a wider enthusiasm for the
rights of humanity, and sought not merely to abolish pocket boroughs and
sinecures, but to level up the poor and level down the wealthy. It was
this aspect of Paine's teaching that excited men to a frenzy of
reprobation or of hope.

A certain continuity of tradition and method is observable in a club,
called The Friends of the People, which was founded at Freemasons'
Tavern in April 1792, with a subscription of five guineas a year. The
members included Cartwright, Erskine, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Philip
Francis, Charles Grey, Lambton, the Earl of Lauderdale, Mackintosh,
Sheridan, Whitbread, and s