Probably Sir Thomas Urquhart was harshly dealt with by his father's creditors, though, of course, it is possible that in the story as told by them they would appear in a more favourable light. They had to do with a man who was unpractical and fantastical in the highest degree, and morbidly sensitive in all matters that seemed to lower his dignity or to cast a slur upon his honour. His brains seethed with plans for the improvement of agriculture, trade, and education, but none of these did the importunity of his creditors permit him to carry into effect. "Truly I may say," he complains, "that above ten thousand severall times I have by these flagitators been interrupted for money, which never came to my use, directly or indirectly one way or other, at home or abroad, any one time whereof I was busied about speculations of greater consequence then [than] all that they were worth in the world; from which, had I not been violently pluck'd away by their importunity, I would have emitted to publick view above five hundred several treatises on inventions never hitherto thought upon by any."[72] Before his imagination there floated the dream of what he might have been, and his mind alternated between passionate remonstrances against his unfortunate circumstances and delusive hopes and anticipations.
The editor of the Maitland Club edition of Urquhart's works truly remarks that there is a melancholy earnestness, almost approaching insanity, in his wild speculations on what he might have done for himself and his country but for the weight of worldly incumbrances. "Even so," he says, "may it be said of myself, that when I was most seriously imbusied about the raising of my own and countrie's reputation to the supremest reach of my endeavours, then did my father's creditors, like so many millstones hanging at my heels, pull down the vigour of my fancie, and violently hold that under, what [which] other wayes would have ascended above the sublimest regions of vulgar conception."[73]
So convinced was he that the schemes and inventions with which his thoughts were occupied were of immense value, that he declared that he ought to have the benefit of that Act of James III. (36th statute of his fifth Parliament) which provides that the debtor's movable goods be first "valued and discussed before his lands be apprised." He claimed this as a right from the State; "and if," he says, "conform to the aforesaid Act, this be granted, I doe promise shortly to display before the world, ware of greater value then [than] ever from the East Indias was brought in ships to Europe."[74] But unfortunately the Philistines were too strong for him.