In 1802 the government, failing to establish any distinct charge against Russell, set him at liberty, and he at once repaired to Paris, where he met Robert Emmet, who was then preparing to renew the effort of Fitzgerald and Wolfe Tone.  Time had not changed, nor suffering damped, the patriotic impulses of Thomas Russell; he entered heartily into the plans of young Emmet, and when the latter left for Ireland in November, 1802, to prosecute his hazardous enterprise, it was with the full understanding that Russell would stand by his side in the post of danger, and with him perish or succeed.  In accordance with this arrangement, Russell followed Robert Emmet to Dublin, where he arrived so skilfully disguised that even his own family failed to recognise him.  Emmet’s plans for the outbreak in Dublin were matured when Russell, with a trusty companion, was despatched northwards to summon the Ulster men to action.  Buoyant in spirit, and filled with high expectation, he entered on his mission, but he returned to Dublin a week later prostrate in spirit and with a broken heart.  One of his first acts on arriving in Belfast was to issue a proclamation, in which, as “General-in-Chief of the Northern District,” he summoned the people of Ulster to action.

The North, however, refused to act.  It was the old, old story.  Belfast resolved on waiting “to see what the South would do,” and the South waited for Belfast.  Disgusted and disappointed, Russell quitted the Northern capital and proceeded to Antrim, where at least he thought he might expect to find cordial co-operation; but fresh disappointments awaited him, and with a load of misery at his heart, such as he had never felt before, Russell returned to Dublin, where he lived in seclusion, until arrested by Major Sirr and his myrmidons on the 9th of September, 1803.  A reward of L1,500 had been offered for his apprehension.  We learn on good authority that the ruffianly town-major, on arresting him, seized the unfortunate patriot rudely by the neck-cloth, whereupon, Russell, a far more powerful man than his assailant, flung him aside, and drawing a pistol, exclaimed—­“I will not be treated with indignity.”  Sirr parleyed for a while; a file of soldiers was meanwhile summoned to his aid, and Russell was borne off in irons a prisoner to the Castle.  While undergoing this second captivity a bold attempt was made by his friends to effect his liberation by bribing one of the gaolers; the plot, however, broke down, and Russell never breathed the air of freedom again.  While awaiting his trial—­that trial which he knew could have but one termination, the death of a felon—­Russell addressed a letter to one of his friends outside, in which the following noble passage, the fittest epitaph to be engraved on his tombstone, occurs:—­“I mean to make my trial,” he writes, “and the last of my life, if it is to close now, as serviceable to the cause of liberty as I can. I trust my countrymen will ever adhere to it: I know it will soon prosper.