His friends revised a translation by him of Crebillon's Rhadamisthe and Zenobia, which he unsuccessfully submitted to Garrick for representation.
For a time he was corrector of the press for Strahan, and in 1769 became printing overseer to Messrs. Brown & Adlard, but soon after 1770 appears to have lived exclusively by literary work.
In 1780 he visited Jamaica to secure money as his brother's heir, and on his return prosecuted his literary calling in London with vigour and success.
[1] In the same year Russell issued, anonymously, the first two volumes of his History of Modern Europe, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.
Cadell arranged to pay him £750 for a History of England from the accession of George III to the end of the American war, but this was not begun.