CHAPTER XV.
POVERTY AND COERCION.
We are now in the nineteenth century, without any relief for the Irish peasantry.

The rebellion of '98, so cruelly crushed, left an abiding sense of terror in the hearts of the Roman Catholic population.
Their condition was one of almost hopeless prostration.

The Union was effected without the promised relief from their religious disabilities which was to be one of its essential conditions.

The established church was secured, the rights of property were secured, but there was no security for the mass of the people.

Domestic politics were almost forgotten in the gigantic struggle with Napoleon, which exhausted the energies of the empire.