With the new year the party from Foxholes came to town, and there Reeve was laid up with a serious illness which lasted nearly a month. The Journal notes on February 7th--'I attended a dinner of The Club, and resigned the treasurership, which I had held for twenty-five years.' A corresponding entry a month later, on March 7th, is 'At the third dinner of The Club. Lord Salisbury came "to my obsequies" and Gladstone wrote to me. Grant Duff elected to the treasurership.' Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has been so good as to amplify this by a note from his own diary. 'At the dinner on February 7th, 1893'--he writes--'I was in the chair.... Reeve made a statement for which he had prepared me by letter, to the effect that his great age, breaking health, and frequent absences from London, would oblige him to resign ere long the treasurership of The Club--the only office which exists in connection with it. He has held it for some five-and-twenty years, and it is not surprising that his voice faltered as he addressed us.... _March 21st_--Dined with The Club, taking my seat for the first time as treasurer. After the last meeting mentioned, Reeve wrote to me to say that there was a feeling in favour of my becoming his successor, and asked whether I should object. I replied in the negative, and on the 7th I was unanimously elected, upon the proposal of Sir Henry Elliot, who was in the chair, and was seconded by Lord Salisbury.' Of the correspondence of this period there is little. Lord Derby, who was almost, or quite, the last of his political correspondents, was too ill to write, and died on April 21st. On the 27th Reeve attended the funeral service at St. Margaret's. Letters relating to the 'Review,' of course, continued. Here are three referring to a political problem which, so lately as five years ago, few could have the patience to be bothered with. That Reeve, at his advanced age, could take it up with such interest is a strong proof of the vitality and even freshness of his intellect. _To Rear-Admiral Bridge_ 62 Rutland Gate: April 27th. My dear admiral,--I wish you would read an article in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for May (just out) on the Russian occupation of Manchuria. I never read a more impudent piece of _blague._ ------ must have written it. Nobody else would boast of swindling the Chinese with a false map. This induces me to ask whether you could not give me a short article for the 'Review' on The Russians on the Pacific' and the naval effects of their position at Vladivostock. They have made it a fortress, but it will take a long time to make it a settlement. But it may become important. Yours very faithfully, H. REEVE.