Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

312 LOGOPANDECTEISION.
lant testimonies they gave evident proofe, to the improvement of my country's credit,
in many occasions.
45. As my heart hath been thus devoted to the love of my native soile, so have my
braines to the honour thereof discharged so much duty, that betwixt what is printed
and what ready for the presse, I have set forth above a hundred severall bookes, on
subjects never hitherto thought upon by any.
s. d. B. 2. 46. Let no man think that I have spoke this in hope of future benefit, or by way
To 57' 58' °^ re ? re * ; I should have faild therof in times past ; vertue, in my estimation, whether
morall or intellectuall, carrying alwayes along with it a recompence sufficient ; nor
yet out of pride, or vaine glory in extolling of my own praises, which, as willingly
as to live, I would have smothered, but that the continuall receiving of bad offices for
my good intentions, hath wrought this excursion out of my pen.
47. Could any man imagine I should have been singled out amongst all those of
Scotland to suffer most prejudice without a cause ; that the wickedest of all the land
should be permitted to possesse the best part of my inheritance, vnder colour of a law,
by meer iniquity ; and other, little better then he, to gape after the remainder, with-
out any fault of mine ?
48. Who would think that some of my tenants, whilst I was from home, being
killed, and neer upon three thousand pound sterlin worth "of goods taken from them
by a pack of villaines, who could pretend for their robery no other excuse but that
they had been plundered by others, no reparation or justice should be granted, although
oftentimes demanded ; that I should be extorsed, in matter of publique dues, beyond
any of my neighbours ; that a garrison should be placed within my house, and kept
there ten months together, to my almost utter undoing, upon no other pretence but
that the stance thereof is stately, and the house it selfe of a notable good fabrick and
contrivance ; and, in the mean while, a party both of horse and foot remain never-
theles quartered upon my lands till the remotest Highlands should pay their sesse-
mony ; that neighbor garrisons, besides my own, should by parties inforce me,
upon their governours' bare tickets, to furnish them with what provisions they pleased,
and yet nothing thereof be allowed unto me, although I presented a bill to that pur-
pose to the Scots Committee of Estates, as I did for the quartering of severall troops
of horse, for many months together, without any allowance.
49. These grievous pressures, with many other, and as many more I have sustained
by the ministry of the land, whereof I make account in the large treatise of my Apor-
rexises to give notice more at length, have occasioned this digression in a part ; which
likewise having proceeded from a serious consideration of the two aforesaid scurvie
qualities, that move the inhabitants of this He to run every foot to supernatural
causes, engageth me to say, that as it is a maxim in philosophy that entia non sunt
multiplicanda sine necessitate, so that it is no lesse incongruity to avouch, that a
thing hath miraculously been done by God, or that for atchievement thereof the help