He was to go in to negotiate a settlement for his country while the voices of faction were yelping at his heels all over Ireland, and all the forces of reconciliation which he had brought into play were neutralized and sterilized.
A debate of these days gave him a happier occasion to intervene than the domestic bickerings in which he had been forced to take part; yet even in this the note of sadness predominated.

On October 29th, when a vote of thanks was proposed to the Navy, Army and Mercantile Marine, he joined his voice to that of other leaders of parties, to emphasize, as he said, that they spoke from an absolutely unanimous House of Commons.
He recalled the exploits of Irish troops and dwelt again on the presence of a large Irish element in the Canadian and Anzac Divisions.

But his reference was chiefly to those Nationalist Irish Brigades, who had remained true, he said, to the old motto of the Brigade of Fontenoy, _Semper et ubique fidelis_.

These men had known in the midst of their privations and sufferings a new and poignant feeling of anguish: they had seen "a section at any rate of their countrymen" repudiate the view that in serving as they served they were fighting for Ireland, for her happiness, for her prosperity and her liberty.
"I wish it were possible for me to speak a word to every one of those men.

If my words could reach them, I would say to every one of them that they need have no misgiving, that they were right from the first, that time will vindicate them, that time will show that while fighting for liberty and civilization in Europe they are also fighting for civilization and liberty in their own land.