The radical changes of the early First French Republic inspired British reformers to form their own unprecedentedly inclusive club network, the London Corresponding Society. Openly trying to recruit workingmen, unlike elite preceding Parliamentary Reform networks, the society pushed for universal suffrage and a rapid opening of British politics. The organization’s potential sparked a much more successful counter-mobilization, however, from the Society for the Preservation of Liberty and Property from Republicans and Levellers, which gloried in the unreformed British system and sought to repress reform agitation. After the Declaration of War with France in 1793, most dissent was driven underground.