This small treatise was closely followed by a more important production, upon which Sir Thomas's fame as an author largely rests--his ΕΚΣΚΥΒΑΛΑΥΡΟΝ; _or, The Discovery of a most Exquisite Jewel_. The title of this work is intended to be an abbreviation of a Greek phrase--"_Gold from a dunghill_"--and contains an allusion to the fact that the first half of it was, in its manuscript form, one of the bundles of paper which the soldiers treated with such disrespect after the battle of Worcester, and which, indeed, was found next day in a kennel of one of the streets of that city. This book, a fuller account of which we give later on, consists of an introduction to a work on a Universal Language, to which is added a rhapsodical panegyric on the Scottish nation, and an account of his fellow-countrymen who had been famous as scholars or soldiers during the previous fifty years. In the course of the early part of 1652 Urquhart had in some way excited the suspicions of the Government, and in the month of May his papers were seized by the authorities. Nothing treasonable, however, was found among them, and probably the harmless character of his pursuits, which was thus brought to light, made a favourable impression upon the Council of State. For, a few weeks later, he was allowed, in answer to a petition which he presented to the Council, and which was referred to Cromwell, to return to Scotland to arrange his private affairs, and to be absent for five months.[121] The only condition imposed upon him was that during this time he should do nothing to the prejudice of the Commonwealth. Sir Thomas Urquhart's creditors had been told that he had been killed at the battle of Worcester, and, as he says in his own characteristic way, "for gladness of the tidings [they] had madified [moistened] their nolls to some purpose with the liquor of the grape,"[122] and had possessed themselves of all his property. When they were assured by letters from himself that he was still alive, they claimed payment for debts which had been long discharged, under the impression that the receipts had perished along with other papers after the battle. They even plotted, we are assured, to arrest our author in London, after he had been liberated upon parole. By the thoughtful discretion of a Captain Goodwin, of Colonel Pride's regiment, the receipts in question had been saved out of the spoil of Worcester, and Sir Thomas Urquhart was able to display them to the unjust creditors. "And when," he says, "they saw that those their acquittances ... were produced before them, they then, looking as if their noses had been ableeding, could not any longer for shame retard my cancelling of the aforesaid bonds."[123]