ssess the
king's confidence. Sidmouth's following had also been approached.
Sidmouth himself was considered too obnoxious to some of Pitt's
followers to be a safe member of the new cabinet, but Vansittart was
offered the chancellorship of the exchequer and Bragge, who had taken
the additional surname of Bathurst, the office of secretary at war. They
refused, however, to enter the ministry, unless accompanied by Sidmouth
himself.

Perceval eventually became prime minister, retaining his former offices;
Lord Bathurst, while remaining at the board of trade, presided
temporarily at the foreign office, which was offered to the Marquis
Wellesley, then serving as British ambassador to the Spanish junta at
Seville, and taken over by him in December. Hawkesbury, now Earl of
Liverpool, succeeded Castlereagh as secretary for war and the colonies,
and was followed at the home office by Richard Ryder, a brother of
Harrowby. Harrowby himself gave up the board of control in November to
Melville's son, Robert Dundas, who, however, was not made a member of
the cabinet. Lord Palmerston, who had been a junior lord of the
admiralty under Portland, declined the chancellorship of the exchequer,
and though he accepted Leveson-Gower's post as secretary at war, he was
by his own desire excluded from the cabinet.

[Pageheading: _NEW BRITISH CONQUESTS._]

While the close of the year 1809 was darkened by national
disappointment and political anxieties, the honour of British arms had
been amply vindicated in the Spanish peninsula, and the brilliant
exploit of Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads had recalled the glories of the
Nile. Cochrane had already achieved marvels under Collingwood in the
Mediterranean, and notably off the Spanish coast, when he was selected
to conduct an attack by fireships on the French squadron blockaded under
the shelter of the islands of Aix and Oleron. This he carried out on the
night of April 11, with a dash and skill worthy of Nelson, and unless
checked by Gambier, the admiral in command, who had been raised to the
peerage after the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, he must have
succeeded in destroying the whole of the enemy's ships. Gambier was
afterwards acquitted by a court martial of negligence, but the verdict
of the public was against him. In the autumn Collingwood reduced the
seven Ionian islands, and gained an important advantage by cutting out a
considerable detachment of the Toulon fleet in the Bay of Genoa.