The _ligue_, who had retired for no other end, did not make the King expect them long. Lord Harrington alone, when Mr. Pelham announced to him the summons for their return, said, “Go back!--yes, but not without conditions.” One was, that Lord Granville should give up the promise of the Garter; which he did--but got while out of place, and saw Lord Harrington sacrificed to the King’s resentments. The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard them better than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The insults he experienced from his own, and those obliged servants, never provoked him enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or his own. If any object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expence of his integrity, though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the burning his father’s will[146] must be an indelible blot upon his memory; as a much later instance of his refusing to pardon a young man[147] who had been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery, contrary to all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge; merely because Willes, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him, and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in general his disposition was merciful, if the offence was not murder. His avarice was much less equivocal than his courage: he had distinguished the latter early;[148] it grew more doubtful afterwards: the former he distinguished very near as soon,[149] and never deviated from it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter, he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.