I Signed My Death Warrant by Ryle T. Dwyer Page A

less opprobrium would be the best we could hope to win.’ Nobody could be expected willingly to court such infamy, and Collins was no exception. ‘I had got a certain name, whether I deserved it or not,’ he later told the Dáil, ‘and I knew what I was going over there that I was being placed in a position that I could not reconcile, and that could not in the public mind be reconciled with what they thought I stood for, no matter what we brought back.’
    â€˜For my own part,’ Collins explained on another occasion, ‘I anticipated the loss of the position I held in the hearts of the Irish people as a result of my share in what was bound to be an unsatisfactory bargain. And to have and to hold the regard of one’s fellow countrymen is surely a boon not to be lost, while there is a way to avoid it.’
    Instead of arguing on those lines in cabinet, however, Collins actually made many of the same points in favour of his own exclusion that de Valera had already made for not going. He could be of use to the delegation if he were ‘kept in the background (against all eventualities) to be offered in a crisis as a final sacrifice with which to win our way to freedom.’
    â€˜It is not a question of individuals now,’ the president told Collins in an obvious appeal to his vanity. ‘It is a question of the nation and you and I and the cabinet know that the British will not make their best offer in your absence.’
    â€˜I had no choice,’ Collins explained afterwards. ‘I had to go.’ But he made it clear to everyone that he was going against his better judgment.
    â€˜Brugha was next proposed and flatly refused to have his name considered,’ according to Barton. ‘His business he said was Minister of Defence, and with the Army he would stay. As far as I remember none urged him to change his mind for all realised that negotiations were not likely to last more than a first session if Cathal was present.’
    â€˜Cathal is the honestest and finest soul in the world, but he is a bit slow at seeing fine differences and rather stubborn, and the others would not seek to convince him, but would rather try to out-manoeuvre him, and there would be trouble,’ de Valera explained afterwards. ‘If I were going myself,’ he added, ‘I would certainly have taken him with me.’
    Collins suggested Stack, ‘but he too definitely refused saying he was not fitted for such work and would not consent to go in any circumstances,’ Barton recalled. ‘I then proposed that Gavan Duffy should go as the inclusion of a man with knowledge of law and legal terms was essential. Collins proposed [Eamonn] Duggan as a more suitable legal man. Duggan was approved. I then suggested Mulcahy, but Brugha refused his consent. Collins proposed “either Barton or Childers or preferably both should go.” Dev stated that he was anxious that Childers should be secretary, and this was agreed to without demur. Stack supported my selection and it was agreed. Personally I was opposed to going, feeling I had not the necessary knowledge or ability, but after so many had made objections I felt diffident about refusing, especially as I had made a strong appeal to Collins to sink his objections in the national interest. Dev finally proposed Gavan Duffy and the team was complete.’ It was significant that nobody suggested the one remaining member of the cabinet, W. T. Cosgrave.
    The final three were selected ‘to work in well’ with Griffith and Collins, according to de Valera, who described Duggan and Gavan Duffy as ‘mere legal padding’. Although born in Cheshire, England, George Gavan Duffy had a sound nationalist pedigree. He was the fourteenth of seventeen children of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, one of the founders of the Young Ireland movement in 1840s. Charles Gavan Duffy emigrated to Australia in the 1850s and became prime minister of