Much of the vigorous political debate in the 1790s was sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" in November 1790. Most commentators in Britain expected Burke to support the French revolutionaries, because he had previously been part of the liberal Whig party, a critic of monarchical power, a supporter of the American revolutionaries, and a prosecutor of poor governance in India. When he failed to do so, it shocked the populace and angered his friends and supporters. Burke's book, despite being priced at an expensive three shillings, sold an astonishing 30,000 copies in two years. Thomas Paine's famous response, "The Rights of Man" (1792), which became the rallying cry for thousands, however, greatly surpassed it, selling upwards of 200,000 copies.