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 some sixty others; but Fox refused to join. Their profession of faith was more moderate than that of Hardy's Club; it emphasized the need of avoiding innovation and of restoring the constitution to its original purity.[39] This was in the spirit of the Associations of 1780; but the new club was far less characteristic of the times than the clubs of working men described above. The appearance of Paine's "Rights of Man" (Part II), the founding of these societies, and the outbreak of war between France and Austria in April 1792 made a deep impression on Pitt. He opposed a notice of a motion of Reform for the following session, brought forward by Grey on 30th April. While affirming his continued interest in that subject, Pitt deprecated its introduction at that time as involving the risk of anarchy.