In his Memoirs, indeed, where in no instance but one he ever confers praise unmixed with censure, he bestows on Mr. Winnington the character of being one “whom it was impossible to hate or to trust;” and, in a subsequent passage, he describes him “as perniciously witty, affecting an honesty in avowing whatever was dishonourable.” But, in his private correspondence, written immediately after the sudden and melancholy death of Mr. Winnington,[8] he calls him one of the first men in England, and adds, “I was familiarly acquainted with him, loved and admired him, for he had great good-nature, and a quickness of wit most peculiar to himself; and for his public talents he has left nobody equal to him, as before nobody was superior to him but my father.” With Mr. Fox he appears to have lived on the most confidential terms, till that gentleman accepted the Seals in 1755 under the Duke of Newcastle. Mr. Walpole, whose inveteracy to the Pelhams was unabated, could not pardon in his father’s friend, a connexion with the man whom he regarded as the chief traitor in the accomplishment of his father’s ruin. The step too was taken without consulting him. This added to his indignation; and from that time, though he continued in habits of intimacy with Mr. Fox, he became cold to his interests, and, by his own account, was, on one important occasion, active and successful in traversing his designs. He was, in truth, during the whole of his public life, too much under the guidance of personal feelings and resentments, and too apt to sacrifice his friendships to his aversions; and as the latter were often excited by trivial and accidental causes, his political conduct, though unexceptionable on the score of interest or ambition, was fluctuating and uncertain, and his judgment of men variable and capricious. The affair of Admiral Byng, in which he took a part that does credit to his feelings and humanity, completed his estrangement from Mr. Fox. He animadverts with great severity on the cruelty of obstructing an irregular application for mercy with the view of embarrassing an Administration. The questionable conduct of Mr. Fox on that occasion seems to have deserved some such censure; but Mr. Walpole betrays his own partiality by the comparative tenderness with which he treats the Ministers themselves. They had it in their power to save Admiral Byng, and justice as well as humanity required them to exert it if they thought him either injured or innocent. Yet they chose to sign the warrant for his execution rather than incur the odium with the King or the public of insisting on his pardon.