Commerce had developed in Ireland; industry had increased her exportations; the ministers hostile to the measures that were demanded to relieve the miseries of a neighboring and dependent kingdom, cited with pride the figures of the statistics: but the wealth was concentrated in a small number of hands; the proprietors of the soil were, for the most part, strangers to Ireland; absent or indifferent to her sufferings. The common people were engaged in agricultural pursuits of the most primitive character, without other care than to draw from the earth, with the least possible effort, the subsistence necessary from day to day. {457} The introduction of the potato, by giving the peasants a food more economical than wheat, had increased their idleness, their improvidence, and their misery. Without money, without resources, without education, habitually separated from the higher classes, the Irish peasantry lived in a state bordering on barbarism. "The last of the animals, does not support its kind," said, in 1822, the most illustrious of their advocates, Daniel O'Connell, often most useful but many times dangerous to their cause: "Their homes should not be called houses--they have no right to that title: they are huts, built in the earth, partly thatched over, partly exposed to the elements. No furniture garnishes the interior; it is a luxury to possess a trunk; and a table is rarely to be found. All the family live in one room; they have no beds, and sleep upon straw; in the mountainous districts they scarcely have sufficient covering. Their wages are not above eight cents per day, and even at that rate, farm hands cannot find work. Their land, therefore, is their only means of support, and this land is leased to them at a price far above its real value, owing to the numerous middlemen who come between the proprietors and the peasants." So much suffering, so long endured without effectual relief, in a situation seemingly without issue, at last brought about a violent agitation, which was used to foment religious and political passions. The Test Act was repealed, and a simple oath of allegiance was substituted for the compulsory communion with the established Church. This was the first step leading to the emancipation of the Catholics; all felt it, even the protestant dissenters, who supported the measure, although it was of more benefit to their traditional enemies, the Catholics, than to themselves. {458}