I had hoped that as a result of the Pact between Collins and de Valera we would have an uncontested election, which would result in preserving a united front against England. However, both the Labour Party and the Farmers prepared to send forward candidates of their own to oppose Republicans and Free Staters. Before the polling, Mick Collins delivered a speech in Cork urging Labour and other parties to carry on their campaign. This was, of course, a flagrant violation of the agreement which he had entered. In North, Mid. and South Tipperary I succeeded in inducing the Farmers’ candidates to withdraw from the contest. If all parties were as patriotic as the farmers of Tipperary civil war might have been avoided. They had suffered more than any other section of the community from the Black and Tan terror. They had had martial law preventing the holding of the fairs and markets for three years. Their farmhouses and creameries had been wrecked in scores, and they had stood loyally by us all through the war. Their self-sacrifice in retiring from the 1922 election deserves to be remembered. The Labour candidate in Tipperary would listen to no argument. He cared nothing about presenting a united front to the enemy. He was ambitious for power and he insisted upon going forward. He afterwards, I believe, boasted that he was not afraid of Dan Breen even when a gun was put up to his breast. Even in election campaigns such slanders are hardly playing the game. However, I hope my countrymen know me well enough not to believe that I would ever put a gun up to an unarmed opponent. All this time I still felt anxious for the future. Mick Collins’ violation of the Pact made me suspicious. I felt too that England would never permit a Coalition Ministry of Free Staters and Republicans, but my hope all the time was that if a crisis came the Free Staters would throw the Treaty back in her teeth rather than cause brother to fight against brother. CHAPTER XXVIII. HOW I WAS CAPTURED. I have no intention of giving here a story of the Civil War. I can only say that I claim to have done my part to avoid it. But when I learned to my amazement that the Free Staters had in the dead of night placed British guns in position to shell the Republicans in the Four Courts I felt there was only one course open to me—to throw in my lot with my old comrades and carry on the fight for the Republic.