As generally happens in times of excitement, the towns are the first to voice the dumb or muttering hatreds of the villages. Parisians led the Revolution in France, though its causes lay thickest and deepest in the rural districts. Not until Paris "stormed" its castle did the villagers attack theirs. So, too, in the muffled repetition of the revolutionary music which England sounds forth, the towns buzz, while the country supplies but a dull ground-tone. Dearness of food and scarcity of work were the chief causes of discontent. The spokesmen for the Spitalfields weavers, who number 14,000, sent up a temperate petition setting forth their distress; but, as is often the case in London, their thoughts turned not to politics, but to practical means of cure. They stated that the trade in velvets, brocades, and rich silks would be absolutely ruined unless steps were taken to revive the fashion in these fabrics. In Liverpool there were far other grievances. There, as in all seaports, the tyranny of the press-gang was sharply resented; and, early in November 1793, the populace clamoured for the election of a "liberty-loving mayor," Mr. Tarleton, who promised to keep the press-gang out of the town.[275]
In general the malcontents urged their case most pointedly in towns and villages, where branches of the Radical Societies had taken root. These Societies or clubs continued to grow in number and influence through the year 1793, the typical club being now concerned, not with faro, but with the "Rights of Man." Some of the Reform Clubs sought to moderate the Gallicizing zeal of the extreme wing. Thus, the "Friends of the People," whose subscription of two and a half guineas was some guarantee for moderation, formally expressed their disapproval of Paine's works and all Republican agencies--a futile declaration; for his "Rights of Man" was the very life-blood of the new clubs. Working men had shown little or no interest in the earlier motions for Reform. The Associations of the years 1780-5 had lapsed; and it was clearly the joint influence of the French Revolution and Paine's productions which led to the remarkable awakening of the year 1792.
Besides the London Corresponding Society, started (as we saw in Chapter III) by Thomas Hardy early in that year, there was another formidable organization, the Society for Constitutional Information, founded in London at the close of 1791. It, too, was concerned with much more than the Reform of Parliament; for on 18th May 1792 it recommended the publication in a cheap form of Paine's "Rights of Man"; and on 21st November it appointed a Committee for Foreign Correspondence. A little later were adopted some of the phrases used in the French Convention, and St. André, Roland, and Barère were admitted to membership. It does not appear that either this Society, or Hardy's, corresponded with France after the declaration of war; for the Parliamentary Committee of Secrecy, charged in 1794 to report on seditious proceedings would, if it were possible, have fastened on so compromising an act. Its members belonged to a higher class than those of Hardy's Society; for they included Romney the painter, Holcroft the dramatist, Horne Tooke, the humorous _littérateur_, and Thelwall, the ablest lecturer of the day.[276] That these men had advanced far beyond the standpoint of the Whiggish "Friends of the People," appears from a letter from one of the Norwich Radical Clubs to the London Corresponding Society: