Lord Selborne had retired from the Government before the negotiators went to Ireland, because he knew of the proposals and was not prepared to sanction them.
"John Redmond's Last Years"
Stephen Gwynn
Each time the negotiators had been answered with vague and ambiguous words; with those promises which potentates are not chary of, even between themselves, and which we poor mortals of the second rank call Court holy water.
"The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Volume VI. Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV."
Madame La Marquise De Montespan
The British negotiators, though they have since stated that they meant substantially to accept this proposal, sent a reply whose treatment of the conditions was understood as a refusal, and which appeared to raise further questions; and when the Transvaal went back to a previous offer, which had previously been held to furnish a basis for agreement, the British Government declined to recur to that basis, as being no longer tenable after the later offer.
"Impressions of South Africa"
James Bryce