BILLY THE BEAST.

NZ Truth, Issue 161, 18 July 1908, Page 1

BILLY THE BEAST.

" Glorious Font th" v. " Glorious Twelfth."

Lately various pragmatical parsons and- pushing politicians have teen bawling; or iellowihg.; from a htimber'of public platforms m many df the cities cf Australasia about the "Glorious twelfth": and before that., a number of our fellow-men Were -celebrating another day, the. "Glorious Fourth." Between these _ two -"glorious" days there is, indeed, a ' very gre^t. difference. The Fourth is a day upbn which a people wrested its ihdependepce>: from a half-mad tyrah't; and the Tf^elith »!. a. day upon, which a number of. .wealthy schemers substituted a foreign figure-head who e'ould. Jjo used for their own selfish purposes for a King that, was so impracticable and so little capable of filling adequately the . position that he occupied feat he might have provoked a .social de»«cratie revolutions m which + he people ■wovld have insisted upon the lands of. &C kingdom bejng dealt with m a ttnnner that would not'have heen either I^MMant or profitable for jthe "aristocra- &" ttieves who had stolen those- lands. Bjbe Mftiorioiis, Fourth" -Is the day of the awol ftwrge Washington •: the "Glorious tEutJ-fifa" is the day of the' dirty "Dutch -. ;_*_....,..■, . ri.*yy , y.- y.*y ■■ -; : The*;; character of George Washington Wife £ noble one. A simple country gentieiaaa, he emerged from 'hiis retirement simply.' to fisht the battles of his country- «_-__. fe r justice ; and when, 'by his great -**rtarf geniu*. he had secured the indepaMt^atc of the people of the United »tet*ii and had served, but eight years ac President, this truly noble man returned to the life of a private citizen, tkaa setting ah example that no suc•weidinK, President— not even the ovei--ambitious General Grant— has dared to iffisra. Even Roosevelt, who has -mas^ •*»r*d' the art of self-advertisement, and OwA so boomed himself that some Reh>«__licans were deliriously m his favor. ih_r*4l. not go so .far as to attempt to -aceeed the eight ybars' limit. The Ghris_fe_u watlam'an, Geprge Washington, had) 'kewexej, done his work ; m the United ißtatMl.vhe had founded a Commonwealth tiat lias become the .greatest republic $hat tiie . world;, has. ever seen, v f.. r ',':. . *. -' ", * ' , ■ •■• HoSv different from George Washington was the -hero of. the "Glorious Twelfth" !V layited to. England by an oligarchic «U*U£ Callttd a. '.'convention," he, as soon •a* be had done the work for which he kad -bji^n invited-^-a work that was greatly fasUitated by the cowardice of the "Rnfilish King— quartered himself and his «ensubines and favorites upon the coun- " Jike a host of .leeches. The "conven•tion^ consisted _of the Lord Mayor, some London aldermen, soine common councilman, and such members of Parliament as fhesc to join them. This scratch crowd •f usurpers, wljo then declared themselves ' a : Parliament, proceeded to ' vote taxes to William of Orange, the alleged Butch' Deliverer. Having thus toecn ''placed upon his feet," and the crown having, been bes towed upon himself and .big, wife, Mary, William, set about providing fat billets for his Dutch favorites, iteatinek was made Earl, of Portland, ahUesteip was given the Earldom of fjechford. Schomberg was made Duke of ~ jflfcAomberg, A Uyerquerque became the JBarl of Qrandham, .Keppel the Earl of Albermarje, Ginkill the Earl of Athlone, aad Ruvigny the Earl' of Galway. William of Orange's ' greatest and most shameless audacity was the unblushing ipianrier. m which he robbed the English people m order to pay for the favors of his concubine, Elizabeth Villiers: His eenduct with this woman was so callously . shameless that even Lord Macaulay. whtsV "jbostory" is now pretty aurally icM^tdsed is a partisan produt * n m JHftAU to whitewash WilDiam,) cannot aveia shelving his disgust. William's trif*. Mary, appears to. have bean very jond of him— why she liked the dirty, brutal boor, whose extraordinary '-'friendships" for certain of his. male associates were notorious, is inexplicable. However, she did, and her conduct as a wife, seems to have been excellent. In juch circumstance^ the very least that William could hav£ : done was to keep from hei^ knowledge the existing intrigue With Lizzie Villiers< . His cohabitations with*, the Villiers woman were, however, notorious, and were indulged m by him 4n open ' contempt, of those principles of jnoraiity . and religion that he was supposed to defend. The Protestant Defender, indeed ; ! A fellow he wa« to 'defend vProtestafftism, or any other re-' >i_riou^##, .^.i«hs>»^^3^.;wffAi»^: < " --

The openness of Dutch Billy!s immoralr ity with Elizabeth Villiers was not the wojst part ■'• of his behaviour jfiencerning his concdhinel^. -Tie coward King James had left hehind|tiiih, when he fled from England;: ;yir^us^ private' estates. .One of these estates /.was of great' extent ; it consisted oiv no.* less' \than 95,000' acres, and yielded ho -less a sum than.sS26.oQp. This great estate, Billy the Boor actually gave to the compliant Liz Villiers, the .woman .'whom he cuddled as his concubine under the eyes 'of -'his wife and'^ m, the sight of Christendom. What is quite as disgraceful is that the Par-r liament actually allowed Liz Villiers to keep the estate \> It is the more disgraceful because, when it became clear that he had, without the faintest shadow of justification, confiscated immense estates m Ireland, and f showered/ them upon his. favorites, the Parliament did not take action to annul the grants. Yet the grant to Villiers , was not anulled. The Irish lands that Biljy tlie Boor gave to his favorites yielded every year the great total of £211,623.

There are things relating, to the Dutch Deliverer this creature of alleged "pious, illustrious, and immortal m&nory," which, we cannot describe tin these columns. He naa the vice, without the genius, of an Oscar Wilde. He might be appropriately hamea Billy the Beast;. The phrase "customs btastly ; manners none" fitted William excellently. The women of England thought him, and frequently called him, "-a low Dutch boor.' 1 He. was entirely destitute of culture, ana was as surly ana sullen as a bear. /He was one of those peculiarly constituted persons, who. having been too lazy to • acquire knowledge, seek refuge m sullen silence as the - only mea^s of concealing their ignominious ignorance. A showman's "educatea. pig" could have taught William somb usefui lessons ,u> elementary "etiquette." His military merits have been much exaggerated : they were, m fact, below mediocrity. He was guilty ,of the Mrrdeous crime of, m effect, massacring the Highlanders of Glencoe. It has been attempted to show that he d)id no ( t sanction this \ massacre, "but , the warrant for the crime exists, signed, not only at the bottom, but also at the top. It is clear that he was determined that there should be no mistake. His principal achievement; as far as the condition of tlie English people was concerned, was to , increase the National Debt— in England everything is, "the King's" except the public debt, which is. "National"— from one million pounds to -twenty million founds sterling.

Now our readers can see the sort of man whom wild Wowsers and strident strife-stirrers from the North of Ireland would palm off upon us as a man for our womenfolk' to revere as of "pious, glorious, and immortal memory" ! He was a drunkard, and a, debauchee ; He was a conscienceless ga'mlMier, and an outrageous rake — and something else. Against, this wretched creature, who had nothing to recofnmend him to the rascals that invited 'him to invade England except that —sot, adulterer, and worse, that he was —he professed to be jCalvinistically "religious,!' the "character fof George Wash: ington appears like that of. a perfect saint. For the celebration, therefore, that has lately been carried out by the American cousins we can have nothing .hut respect. The American Republic has, it is true, fallen upon dangerous days. In the good old days of Washington and Jefferson, the United States had statesmen who looked upon the welfare of the people as' the supreme law ( and who were well aware that there could be no happk ness without liberty, and no freedom without abundance of food and proper clothing and housing for every man. Now, however, between political bossism and rule of the great Trusts, it looks, as if disaster were imminent, and as if the time would soon come when our American cousins would have ito determine without delay whether .the American nation shall own the Trusts— or the- Trusts own the American nation. The struggle for existence is now as keen among the American people as among, the people af Europe,;, but for this no unbiassed man can blame the courageous and high-minded statesmen who signed the American Declaration of Independence on the Glorious Fourth of July. 1776- :