Lord Russell—Dr. Tillotson.[25]
Lord Chief-Justice—What questions would you ask him, my lord?
Lord Russell—He and I happened to be very conversant. To know whether he did ever find anything tending to this in my discourse.
Lord Chief-Justice—My lord calls you as to his life, and conversation and reputation.
Dr. Tillotson—My lord, I have been many years last past acquainted with my lord Russell, I always judged him a person of great virtue and integrity, and by all the conversation and discourse I ever had with him, I always took him to be a person very far from any such wicked design he stands charged with.
Lord Russell—Dr. Burnet, if you please to give some account of my conversation.
Dr. Burnet—My lord, I have had the honour to be known to my lord Russell several years, and he hath declared himself with much confidence to me, and he always upon all occasions expressed himself against all risings; and when he spoke of some people would provoke to it, he expressed himself so determined against that matter that I think no man could do more.
Dr. Thomas Cox was then called and said that having seen a great deal of Lord Russell during the six weeks 'before this plot came out,' he had always found him against all kind of risings; he expressed distrust of Rumsey.
He said, for my lord Howard, he was a man of excellent parts, of luxuriant parts, but he had the luck not to be much trusted by any party.