In addition to this injustice, the Irish, who were mostly Roman Catholics, were ground down by such oppressive laws that they were really serfs to those landlords who owned the soil on which they toiled for a mere pittance,—­about fourpence a day,—­resulting in a general poverty such as has never before been seen in any European country, with its attendant misery and crime.  The miserable Irish peasantry lived in mud huts or cabins, covered partially with thatch, but not enough to keep out the rain.  No furniture and no comforts were to be seen in these huts.  There were no chairs or tables, only a sort of dresser for laying a plate upon; no cooking utensils but a cast-metal pot to boil potatoes,—­almost the only food.  There were no bedsteads, and but few blankets.  The people slept in their clothes, the whole family generally in one room,—­the only room in the cabin.  For fuel they burned peat.  In order to pay their rent, they sold their pigs.  Beggars infested every road and filled every village.  No one was certain of employment, even at twopence a day.  Everybody was controlled by the priests, whose power rested on their ability to stimulate religious fears, and who were supported by such contributions as they were able to extort from the superstitious and ignorant people,—­by nature brave and generous and joyous, but improvident and reckless.  It was the wonder of O’Connell how they could remain cheerful amid such privations and such wrongs, with the government seemingly indifferent, with none to pity and few to help.  Nor could they vote for the candidates for any office whatever unless they had freeholds, or life-rent possessions, for which they paid a rent of forty shillings.  The landlords of this wretched tenantry, unable to face the misery they saw and which they could not relieve, or fearful of assassination, left the country to spend their incomes in the great cities of Europe, not being united with their people by any ties, social or religious.

What wonder that such a wretched people, urged by the priests, should form associations for their own relief, especially when famine pressed and landlords exacted the uttermost farthing,—­when the crimes to which they were impelled by starvation were punished with the most inexorable severity by Protestant magistrates in whose appointment they had no hand!

The result was the rise of the Catholic Association, the declared object of which was to forward petitions to Parliament, to support an independent Press, to aid emigration to America,—­all worthy, and unobjectionable on the surface, but with the real intent (as affirmed by the Tories and believed by a large majority of the nation) of securing the control of elections, of bringing about the repeal of the Union with England (which, enacted in 1801, had done away with the separate Irish parliament), the resumption of the Church property by the Catholic clergy, and the restoration of the Catholic faith as the dominant