As he returned to Foxholes the country was in the throes of a general election. Tired, it would seem, of steady and consistent government, it longed for a change--anything for a change; and so opened the door for an administration whose almost avowed object was to play skittles with the Constitution--to bowl down the Union, the Established Church, the House of Lords, the rights of property, and any other little trifles that were sacred to law and religion. It was with deep regret that Reeve watched the overthrow of what he considered the true Liberal party, and he wrote to Mr. T. Norton Longman:-- _Foxholes_, _July 14th_--The results of the elections are far worse than could be expected. Some of them are very odd. I have to deplore the defeat of many of my friends. I suppose the Queen will have to make up her mind to a ministry composed of men she abhors; but the majority will have in it inherent weakness and the seeds of dissolution. I have found it difficult to say anything about the elections and have been as short as possible. From a somewhat different point of view, he wrote a few days later to Lord Derby:-- _Foxholes, July 22nd._--I have, of course, been watching with great interest the progress of the elections, and I am happy to say that Hampshire, like all the southern counties, comes out with a clean Unionist bill. If the ultimate majority was to be small, is it not better to be in opposition than in power? Mr. Gladstone's position, as the man responsible for the conduct of affairs, is much less desirable than that of Lord Salisbury, for he has the better half of the country dead against him. How curious it is to trace on the map in the 'Times' the old traditions of Saxon, Celtic, Mercian, and Danish origin in the counties of England, Ireland, and Wales! Are the Celts to govern the Saxons? Early in August Reeve was visited at Foxholes by Count Adam Krasinski [Footnote: Son of Ladislas and grandson of Reeve's early friend Sigismond Krasinski. He was born in 1870, and married at Vienna in 1897.]--a connecting link with the past, the merry days when he was young; and on Krasinski's departure, he went north to visit some friends in Wales and thence on to Chesters. Parliament met on August 4th, and on a simple motion of want of confidence, as an amendment to the Address, the Ministry was defeated. Lord Salisbury resigned, and Mr. Gladstone came into office with a Cabinet in which every shade of unconstitutional opinion and every socially destructive fad were fully represented. Reeve consoled himself with the belief that such a ministry could not last. To Mr. T. Norton Longman he wrote:-- _Chesters, August 22nd_.--I have been paying some visits in Wales and have come on here, where Mrs. Reeve preceded me. We find the Ogilvies very flourishing, and the place beautiful. Here, at least, it is not hot, which seems to be the grievance elsewhere.