PREFACE. ALTHOUGH it cannot fail to be gratifying to the feelings of a descendant of Lord Russell to record the actions of so worthy an ancestor, I should hardly have undertaken the task without some view of general utility. The fame of Lord Russell might be safely left to the historians of all parties, who concur in his *praise; nor have the endeavours which have been lately made to detract from his merits, obtained sufficient notice from the public to require an answer. But in these times, when love of liberty is too generally supposed to be allied with rash innovation, impiety, and anarchy, it seems to me desirable to exhibit to the world, * Burnet, Temple, Hume, &c. at full length, the portrait of a man who, heir to wealth and title, was foremost in defending the privileges of the people: who, when busily occupied in the affairs of public life, was revered in his own family as the best of husbands and of fathers who joined the truest sense of religion with the unqualified assertion of freedom: who, after an honest perseverance in a good cause, at length attested, on the scaffold, his attachment to the ancient principles of the constitution, and the unalienable right of resistance. Nor does it take away from the usefulness of such an attempt, that Lord Russell was sometimes led into error by credulity or party zeal : let others attempt, if they can, to avoid such mistakes; but let them, at the same time, confess, that the courage and perseverance of Lord Russell were amongst the chief causes of that Revolution to which we owe our present liberties. There are some observations, however, which ought properly to precede this work, lest the reader should find the same disappointment in |