It was suggested at the dinner of May 1st that Mr. Courtney might succeed Sir H. Drummond Wolff on the Commission for Reforms, appointed under Article XXIII. of the Treaty of Berlin, for the European provinces of Turkey and Crete; but this too Mr. Courtney declined, and the place was eventually filled by Lord E. Fitzmaurice. Mr. Trevelyan was not included in the Ministry. [Footnote: See the _Life of Goschen_, by the Hon. Arthur Elliot, vol. i., pp. 215, 216; T. E. Holland, _The European Concert in the Eastern Question_, pp. 291, 292; also _Turkey_, No. 15 (1880). Lord E. Fitzmaurice was subsequently appointed British Plenipotentiary, under Articles LIV. and LV. of the Treaty of Berlin, to the Conference in regard to the navigation of the Danube. Both Mr. Courtney and Mr. Trevelyan joined the Ministry later.] At the moment Conservative society was inclined to regard the new Ministry with suspicious wonder, and Sir Charles tells how, on May 5th, a week after taking office, when he and Chamberlain were dining with the Prince of Wales-- 'most of the Cabinet were present with their wives; also the new Viceroy of India (Lord Ripon), and Rosebery and his wife. When the Duke of Cambridge came in, following the Prince and Princess, after shaking hands with those he knew, he stood staring about, whereupon Harcourt, nudging Chamberlain and myself, said, "He is looking for Bradlaugh."' New men were coming to the front; a new political era had begun, and to the Radicals the situation was summed up by the House of Commons' jest which stated that B.C. now meant "Before Chamberlain," and A.D. "Anno Dilke." The break with the past was real and important: 1880 is a marking date in the political history of Great Britain, and the change was due to the Radical combination. CHAPTER XXI AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE I. In "a memorandum of later years," quoted by his biographer, Mr. Gladstone defined his own understanding of "the special commission under which the Government had taken office" in 1880. "It related to the foreign policy of the country, the whole spirit and effect of which we were to reconstruct." Sir Charles's views as to the need for this had long been before the public, and he threw all his energies into the task of helping to achieve it. 'The Liberals, having come into office after violent denunciation of the whole foreign and colonial policy of their predecessors, had a general wish to reverse it in all parts of the world, and to dismiss the agents by whom it had been carried out. They were especially violent against Lytton in India, Layard at Constantinople, and Frere in South Africa.'