1792. His experience in Dungannon contributed significantly to his developing radicalism, and he never again served in any official position, or sought the patronage of his aristocratic friends. With Drennan's assistance, in 1793 Russell was to take a position more congenial to his friends: librarian at the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge (the later Linen Hall Library). The year before, under the active patronage of Dr James MacDonnell, the Society had organised the Belfast Harpers Assembly. As secretary, Russell ensured that transcriptions by his friend Edward Bunting of the melodies played were published. In 1794, Russell attended Irish-language classes offered by Pádraig Ó Loingsigh (Patrick Lynch) at the Belfast Academy. United Irish revolutionary Britain's entry into the war against revolutionary France at the beginning of 1793 and the increased domestic repression that followed, caused the United Irishmen increasingly to despair of reform. At the same time, the possibility of French intervention and assistance encouraged thought of insurrection. By mid-1793 Russell had shed his sympathies for the parliamentary patriots or Irish Whigs. In a letter to Belfast's United Irish paper the Northern Star he denounced Henry Grattan's parliamentary opposition as "insignificant" and accused him of "declaiming, and grinning, and chattering at the abuses of that ministry, which but for him would not now exist". In Review of the Lion of Old England; or Democracy Confounded (1794) (dedicated to the reputedly enlightened "Empress of all the Russias", Catherine II), Russell and his friend William Sampson (John Philpot Curran's Junior Counsel) suggested that, in Ireland, the English charters Grattan celebrated in his strict constitutionalism—Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus—did little more than "amuse the masses". In June 1795, as a member of the Society's increasingly conspiratorial Northern Executive, Russell met with McCracken. Neilson, Robert Simms and, en route to exile in the United States, with Tone. At McArt's fort atop Cave Hill overlooking Belfast they swore the celebrated oath "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence'". Russell travelled widely throughout Ulster, recruiting and organising for the United Irishmen. In September 1795 an informer reported that "Capt. Russell of Belfast has been appointed to the command of all the societies in the province of Ulster"; while some time later, one of the government's most reliable agents informed the Castle that the United Irishmen were ready to rise