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Cause and Correlation in Biology
A User’s Guide to Path Analysis, Structural Equations
and Causal Inference

This book goes beyond the truism that ‘correlation does not imply causation’ and
explores the logical and methodological relationships between correlation and
causation. It presents a series of statistical methods that can test, and potentially dis-
cover, cause–effect relationships between variables in situations in which it is not
possible to conduct randomised or experimentally controlled experiments. Many
of these methods are quite new and most are generally unknown to biologists. In
addition to describing how to conduct these statistical tests, the book also puts the
methods into historical context and explains when they can and cannot justifiably
be used to test or discover causal claims. Written in a conversational style that min-
imises technical jargon, the book is aimed at practising biologists and advanced stu-
dents, and assumes only a very basic knowledge of introductory statistics.

BILL SHIPLEY teaches plant ecology and biometry in the Department of Biology
at the Université de Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. His present ecological research
concentrates on comparative ecophysiology and the ways in which plant attributes
interact to produce ecological outcomes. He has also contributed significantly to
research in topics including plant competition, species richness and plant commu-
nity ecology. His statistical research is equally diverse, covering such areas as per-
mutation and bootstrap methods, path analysis, dynamic game theory and
non-parametric regression smoothers. This rare combination of practical experi-
ence in both experimental science and statistical research makes him well posi-
tioned to communicate statistical methods to practising biologists in a meaningful
way.
Cause and Correlation
in Biology

A User’s Guide to Path Analysis, Structural Equations

and Causal Inference

BILL SHIPLEY
Université de Sherbrooke,
Sherbrooke (Qc) Canada
            
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
    
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011–4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cup.org

© Cambridge University Press 2000

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2000

First paperback edition, with corrections 2002

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface: Univers and Bembo 11/13pt. System: QuarkXpress® []

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Shipley, Bill, 1960–

Cause and correlation in biology: a user’s guide to path analysis, structural equations
and causal inference / Bill Shipley.
p. cm.
ISBN 0 521 79153 7 (hb)
1. Biometry. I. Title.

QH323.5.S477 2001
570′.1′5195 – dc21 00-037918

ISBN 0 521 79153 7 hardback

À ma petite Rhinanthe, David et Élyse.
 Contents

Preface xi

1 Preliminaries 1
1.1 The shadow’s cause 1
1.2 Fisher’s genius and the randomised experiment 7
1.3 The controlled experiment 14
1.4 Physical controls and observational controls 16

2 From cause to correlation and back 21

2.1 Translating from causal to statistical models 21
2.2 Directed graphs 25
2.3 Causal conditioning 28
2.4 d-separation 29
2.5 Probability distributions 32
2.6 Probabilistic independence 33
2.7 Markov condition 35
2.8 The translation from causal models to observational models 36
2.9 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: conditioning on a causal child 37
2.10 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: conditioning due to selection bias 41
2.11 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: feedback loops and cyclic causal graphs 42
2.12 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: imposed conservation relationships 43
2.13 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: unfaithfulness 45
2.14 Counterintuitive consequences and limitations of
d-separation: context-sensitive independence 47
2.15 The logic of causal inference 48
2.16 Statistical control is not always the same as physical control 55
2.17 A taste of things to come 63

vii
CONTENTS

3 Sewall Wright, path analysis and d-separation 65

3.1 A bit of history 65
3.2 Why Wright’s method of path analysis was ignored 66
3.3 d-sep tests 71
3.4 Independence of d-separation statements 72
3.5 Testing for probabilistic independence 74
3.6 Permutation tests of independence 79
3.7 Form-free regression 80
3.8 Conditional independence 83
3.9 Spearman partial correlations 88
3.10 Seed production in St Lucie’s Cherry 90
3.11 Specific leaf area and leaf gas exchange 94

4 Path analysis and maximum likelihood 100

4.1 Testing path models using maximum likelihood 103
4.2 Decomposing effects in path diagrams 123
4.3 Multiple regression expressed as a path model 126
4.4 Maximum likelihood estimation of the gas-exchange
model 130

5 Measurement error and latent variables 136

5.1 Measurement error and the inferential tests 138
5.2 Measurement error and the estimation of path coefficients 140
5.3 A measurement model 143
5.4 The nature of latent variables 152
5.5 Horn dimensions in Bighorn Sheep 157
5.6 Body size in Bighorn Sheep 158
5.7 Name calling 161

6 The structural equations model 162

6.1 Parameter identification 163
6.2 Structural underidentification with measurement models 164
6.3 Structural underidentification with structural models 171
6.4 Behaviour of the maximum likelihood chi-squared statistic
with small sample sizes 173
6.5 Behaviour of the maximum likelihood chi-squared statistic
with data that do not follow a multivariate normal
distribution 179
6.6 Solutions for modelling non-normally distributed variables 185
6.7 Alternative measures of ‘approximate’ fit 188
6.8 Bentler’s comparative fit index 192

viii
 CONTENTS

6.9 Approximate fit measured by the root mean square error

of approximation 193
6.10 An SEM analysis of the Bumpus House Sparrow data 195

7 Nested models and multilevel models 199

7.1 Nested models 200
7.2 Multigroup models 202
7.3 The dangers of hierarchically structured data 209
7.4 Multilevel SEM 221

8 Exploration, discovery and equivalence 237

8.1 Hypothesis generation 237
8.2 Exploring hypothesis space 238
8.3 The shadow’s cause revisited 241
8.4 Obtaining the undirected dependency graph 243
8.5 The undirected dependency graph algorithm 246
8.6 Interpreting the undirected dependency graph 250
8.7 Orienting edges in the undirected dependency graph using
unshielded colliders assuming an acyclic causal structure 254
8.8 Orientation algorithm using unshielded colliders 256
8.9 Orienting edges in the undirected dependency graph using
definite discriminating paths 260
8.10 The Causal Inference algorithm 262
8.11 Equivalent models 264
8.12 Detecting latent variables 266
8.13 Vanishing Tetrad algorithm 271
8.14 Separating the message from the noise 272
8.15 The Causal Inference algorithm and sampling error 278
8.16 The Vanishing Tetrad algorithm and sampling variation 284
8.17 Empirical examples 287
8.18 Orienting edges in the undirected dependency graph
without assuming an acyclic causal structure 294
8.19 The Cyclic Causal Discovery algorithm 299
8.20 In conclusion . . . 304

Appendix 305
References 308
Index 316

ix
 Preface

This book describes a series of statistical methods for testing causal

hypotheses using observational data – but it is not a statistics book. It
describes a series of algorithms, derived from research in Artificial Intelli-
gence, that can discover causal relationships from observational data – but it
is not a book about Artificial Intelligence. It describes the logical and philo-
sophical relationships between causality and probability distributions – but
it is certainly not a book about the philosophy of statistics. Rather it is a
user’s guide, written for biologists, whose purpose is to allow the practising
biologist to make use of these important new developments when causal
questions can’t be answered with randomised experiments.
I have written the book assuming that you have no previous train-
ing in these methods. If you have taken an introductory statistics course –
even if it was longer ago than you want to acknowledge – and have managed
to hold on to some of the basic notions of sampling and hypothesis testing
using statistics, then you should be able to understand the material in this
book. I recommend that you read each chapter through in its entirety, even
if you don’t feel that you have mastered all of the notions. This will at least
give you a general feeling for the goals and vocabulary of each chapter. You
can then go back and pay closer attention to the details.
The book is addressed to biologists, mostly because I am a practis-
ing biologist myself, but I hope that it will also be of interest to statisticians,
scientists in other fields and even philosophers of science. I have not written
the book as a textbook simply because the discipline to which the material
in this book naturally belongs does not yet exist. Whatever the name even-
tually given to this new discipline, I firmly believe that it will exist, and be
generally recognised as a distinct discipline, in the future. The questions that
this new discipline addresses, and the elegance of its results, are too impor-
tant. None the less, the chapters follow a logical progression that would be
well suited to an upper level undergraduate, or graduate, course. I have used
the manuscript of this book for such a purpose and every one of my stu-
dents is still alive.

xi
P R E FA C E

It is a pleasure and an honour to acknowledge the many people who

have contributed to this project. First, Jim and Marg Shipley started every-
thing. Robert van Hulst supplied much of the initial impulse through our
conversations about science and causality while I was still an undergraduate.
He has also read every one of the manuscript chapters and suggested many
useful changes. Paul Keddy kept my interest burning during my Ph.D.
studies and also commented on the first two chapters. As usual, his com-
ments went to the heart of the matter.
The late Robert Peters had a large impact on my thoughts about
causality and even convinced me, for a number of years, that ecologists are
best to give up on the concept – not because he viewed the notion of causal-
ity as meaningless (he never believed this despite his empiricist reputation)
but because it was simply too slippery a notion to demonstrate without ran-
domised experiments. His constant prodding must have caused me to stop
while wandering through the library one day when, almost subconsciously,
I saw a book with the following provocative title: Discovering causal structure.
Artificial intelligence, philosophy of science, and statistical modeling (Glymour et al.
1987). That book was my introduction to a more sophisticated understand-
ing of causality. Rob Peters was much too young when he passed away and
I am sorry that he never read the book that you are about to begin. I am
not sure that he would have approved of everything in it but I know that he
would have appreciated the effort.
Martin Lechowicz introduced me to the notion of path analysis at
a time when this method had been mostly forgotten by biologists. He and
I have collaborated for a number of years on this topic and he read the entire
manuscript of this book, providing many insightful comments. Steve Coté
and Jim Grace also read parts of this book. Jim, in particular, provided some
important counterpoint to my thoughts on latent variable models. Marco
Festa-Bianchet provided the unpublished data that is reported in Chapter 5.
I must also acknowledge my graduate students, Margaret McKenna, Driss
Meziane, Jarceline Almeida-Cortez, Luc St-Pierre and Muhaymina Sari, as
well as the many members of the SEMNET Internet discussion group.
Finally, I want to thank Judea Pearl for kindly responding to my
many emails about d-separation and basis sets and to Clark Glymour, Richard
Scheines and Peter Spirtes of Carnegie–Mellon University for their gen-
erosity in extending an invitation to visit with them and for patiently answer-
ing my many questions about their discovery algorithms. Clark Glymour
read and commented on some of the manuscript chapters.
I hope that you find this book to be useful, interesting and readable.
I welcome your comments and feedback. Especially, if you don’t agree with
me.
Bill Shipley

xii
1 Preliminaries

1.1 The shadow’s cause

The Wayang Kulit is an ancient theatrical art, practised in Malaysia and
throughout much of the Orient. The stories are often about battles between
good and evil, as told in the great Hindu epics. What the audience actually
sees are not actors, nor even puppets, but rather the shadows of puppets pro-
jected onto a canvas screen. Behind the screen is a light. The puppet master
creates the action by manipulating the puppets and props so that they will
intercept the light and cast shadows. As these shadows dance across the
screen the audience must deduce the story from these two-dimensional pro-
jections of the hidden three-dimensional objects. Shadows, however, can be
ambiguous. In order to infer the three-dimensional action, the shadows
must be detailed, with sharp contours, and they must be placed in context.
Biologists are unwitting participants in nature’s Shadow Play. These
shadows are cast when the causal processes in nature are intercepted by our
measurements. Like the audience at the Wayang Kulit, the biologist cannot
simply peek behind the screen and directly observe the actual causal pro-
cesses. All that can be directly observed are the consequences of these pro-
cesses in the form of complicated patterns of association and independence
in the data. As with shadows, these correlational patterns are incomplete –
and potentially ambiguous – projections of the original causal processes. As
with shadows, we can infer much about the underlying causal processes if
we can learn to study their details, sharpen their contours, and especially if
we can study them in context.
Unfortunately, unlike the Puppet Master in a Wayang Kulit, who
takes care to cast informative shadows, nature is indifferent to the correla-
tional shadows that it casts. This is the main reason why researchers go to
such extraordinary lengths to randomise treatment allocations and to control
variables. These methods, when they can be properly done, simplify the
correlational shadows to manageable patterns that can be more easily
mapped to the underlying causal processes.

1
PRELIMINARIES

It is uncomfortably true, although rarely admitted in statistics texts,

that many important areas of science are stubbornly impervious to experi-
mental designs based on randomisation of treatments to experimental units.
Historically, the response to this embarrassing problem has been to either
ignore it or to banish the very notion of causality from the language and to
claim that the shadows dancing on the screen are all that exists. Ignoring a
problem doesn’t make it go away and defining a problem out of existence
doesn’t make it so. We need to know what we can safely infer about causes
from their observational shadows, what we can’t infer, and the degree of
ambiguity that remains.
I wrote this book to introduce biologists to some very recent, and
intellectually elegant, methods that help in the difficult task of inferring
causes from observational data. Some of these methods, for instance struc-
tural equations modelling (SEM), are well known to researchers in other
fields, although largely unknown to biologists. Other methods, for instance
those based on causal graphs, are unknown to almost everyone but a small
community of researchers. These methods help both to test pre-specified
causal hypotheses and to discover potentially useful hypotheses concerning
causal structures.
This book has three objectives. First, it was written to convince
biologists that inferring causes without randomised experiments is possible.
If you are a typical reader then you are already more than a little sceptical.
For this reason I devote the first two chapters to explaining why these
methods are justified. The second objective is to produce a user’s guide,
devoid of as much jargon as possible, that explains how to use and interpret
these methods. The third objective is to exemplify these methods using bio-
logical examples, taken mostly from my own research and from that of my
students. Since I am an organismal biologist whose research deals primarily
with plant physiological ecology, most of the examples will be from this
area, but the extensions to other fields of biology should be obvious.
I came to these ideas unwillingly. In fact, I find myself in the embar-
rassing position of having publicly claimed that inferring causes without
randomisation and experimental control is probably impossible and, if pos-
sible, is not to be recommended (Shipley and Peters 1990). I had expressed
such an opinion in the context of determining how the different traits of an
organism interact as a causal system. I will return to this theme repeatedly
in this book because it is so basic to biology1 and yet is completely unamen-
11
This is also the problem that inspired Sewall Wright, one the most influential evolution-
ary biologists of the twentieth century, the inventor of path analysis, and the intellectual
grandparent of the methods described in this book. The history of path analysis is explored
in more detail in Chapter 3.

2
 1.1 THE SHADOW’S CAUSE

able to the one method that most modern biologists and statisticians would
accept as providing convincing evidence of a causal relationship: the ran-
domised experiment. However, even as I advanced the arguments in Shipley
and Peters (1990), I was dissatisfied with the consequences that such argu-
ments entailed. I was also uncomfortably aware of the logical weakness of
such arguments; the fact that I did not know of any provably correct way of
inferring causation without the randomised experiment does not mean that
such a method can’t exist. In my defence, I could point out that I was saying
nothing original; such an opinion was (and still is) the position of most sta-
tisticians and biologists. This view is summed up in the mantra that is learnt
by almost every student who has ever taken an elementary course in statis-
tics: correlation does not imply causation.
In fact, with few exceptions2, correlation does imply causation. If we
observe a systematic relationship between two variables, and we have ruled
out the likelihood that this is simply due to a random coincidence, then some-
thing must be causing this relationship. When the audience at a Malay shadow
theatre sees a solid round shadow on the screen they know that some three-
dimensional object has cast it, although they may not know whether the
object is a ball or a rice bowl in profile. A more accurate sound bite for intro-
ductory statistics would be that a simple correlation implies an unresolved
causal structure, since we cannot know which is the cause, which is the effect,
or even if both are common effects of some third, unmeasured variable.
Although correlation implies an unresolved causal structure, the
reverse is not true: causation implies a completely resolved correlational
structure. By this I mean that once a causal structure has been proposed, the
complete pattern of correlation and partial correlation is fixed unambigu-
ously. This point is developed more precisely in Chapter 2 but is so central
to this book that it deserves repeating: the causal relationships between
objects or variables determine the correlational relationships between them.
Just as the shape of an object fixes the shape of its shadow, the patterns of
direct and indirect causation fix the correlational ‘shadows’ that we observe
in observational data. The causal processes generating our observed data
impose constraints on the patterns of correlation that such data display.
The term ‘correlation’ evokes the notion of a probabilistic associa-
tion between random variables. One reason why statisticians rarely speak of
12
It could be argued that variables that covary because they are time-ordered have no causal
basis. For instance, Monday unfortunately always follows Sunday and day always follows
night. However, the first is simply a naming convention and there is a causal basis for the
second: the earth’s rotation about its axis in conjunction with its rotation around the sun.
A more convincing example would be the correlation between the sizes of unrelated chil-
dren, as they age, who are born at the same time.

3
PRELIMINARIES

causation, except to distance themselves from it, is because there did not
exist, until very recently, any rigorous translation between the language of
causality (however defined) and the language of probability distributions
(Pearl 1988). It is therefore necessary to link causation to probability distri-
butions in a very precise way. Such rigorous links are now being forged. It
is now possible to give mathematical proofs that specify the correlational
pattern that must exist given a causal structure. These proofs also allow us
to specify the class of causal structures that must include the causal structure
that generates a given correlational pattern. The methods described in this
book are justified by these proofs. Since my objective is to describe these
methods and show how they can help biologists in practical applications, I
won’t present these proofs but will direct the interested reader to the rele-
vant primary literature as each proof is needed.
Another reason why some prefer to speak of associations rather than
causes is perhaps because causation is seen as a metaphysical notion that is
best left to philosophers. In fact, even philosophers of science can’t agree on
what constitutes a ‘cause’. I have no formal training in the philosophy of
science and am neither able nor inclined to advance such a debate. This is
not to say that philosophers of science have nothing useful to contribute.
Where directly relevant I will outline the development of philosophical
investigations into the notion of ‘causality’ and place these ideas into the
context of the methods that I will describe. However, I won’t insist on any
formal definition of ‘cause’ and will even admit that I have never seen any-
thing in the life sciences that resembles the ‘necessary and sufficient’ condi-
tions for causation that are so beloved of logicians.
You probably already have your own intuitive understanding of the
term ‘cause’. I won’t take it away from you, although, I hope, it will be more
refined after reading this book. When I first came across the idea that one
can study causes without defining them, I almost stopped reading the book
(Spirtes, Glymour and Scheines 1993). I can advance three reasons why you
should not follow through on this same impulse. First, and most important,
the methods described here are not logically dependent on any particular
definition of causality. The most basic assumption that these methods
require is that causal relationships exist in relation to the phenomena that
are studied by biologists3.
The second reason why you should continue reading even if you
are sceptical is more practical and, admittedly, rhetorical: scientists com-
monly deal with notions whose meaning is somewhat ambiguous. Biologists
13
Perhaps quantum physics does not need such an assumption. I will leave this question to
people better qualified than I. The world of biology does not operate at the quantum
level.

4
 1.1 THE SHADOW’S CAUSE

are even more promiscuous than most with one notion that can still raise
the blood pressure of philosophers and statisticians. This notion is ‘proba-
bility’, for which there are frequentist, objective Bayesian and subjective
Bayesian definitions. In the 1920s von Mises is reported to have said: ‘today,
probability theory is not a mathematical science’ (Rao 1984). Mayo (1996)
gave the following description of the present degree of consensus concern-
ing the meaning of ‘probability’: ‘Not only was there the controversy raging
between the Bayesians and the error [i.e. frequentist] statisticians, but philos-
ophers of statistics of all stripes were full of criticisms of Neyman–Pearson
error [i.e. frequentist-based] statistics . . .’. Needless to say, the fact that those
best in a position to define ‘probability’ cannot agree on one does not
prevent biologists from effectively using probabilities, significance levels,
confidence intervals, and the other paraphernalia of modern statistics4. In
fact, insisting on such an agreement would mean that modern statistics
could not even have begun.
The third reason why you should continue reading, even if you are
sceptical, is eminently practical. Although the randomised experiment is
inferentially superior to the methods described in this book, when random-
isation can be properly applied, it can’t be properly applied to many (perhaps
most) research questions asked by biologists. Unless you are willing simply
to deny that causality is a meaningful concept then you will need some way
of studying causal relationships when randomised experiments cannot be
performed. Maintain your scepticism if you wish, but grant me the benefit
of your doubt. A healthy scepticism while in a car dealership will keep you
from buying a ‘lemon’. An unhealthy scepticism might prevent you from
obtaining a reliable means of transport.
I said that the methods in this book are not logically dependent on
any particular definition of causality. Rather than defining causality, the
approach is to axiomise causality (Spirtes, Glymour and Scheines 1993). In
other words, one begins by determining those attributes that scientists view
as necessary for a relationship to be considered ‘causal’ and then develop a
formal mathematical language that is based on such attributes. First, these
relationships must be transitive: if A causes B and B causes C, then it must
also be true that A causes C. Second, such relationships must be ‘local’; the
technical term for this is that the relationships must obey the Markov condi-
tion, of which there are local and global versions. This is described in more
detail in Chapter 2 but can be intuitively understood to mean that events
are caused only by their proximate causes. Thus, if event A causes event C
14
The perceptive reader will note that I have now compounded my problems. Not only do
I propose to deal with one imperfectly defined notion – causality – but I will do it with
reference to another imperfectly defined notion: a probability distribution.

5
PRELIMINARIES

only through its effect of an intermediate event B (A→B→C), then the

causal influence of A on C is blocked if event B is prevented from respond-
ing to A. Third, these relationships must be irreflexive: an event cannot cause
itself. This is not to say that every event must be causally explained; to argue
in this way would lead us directly into the paradox of infinite regress. Every
causal explanation in science includes events that are accepted (measured,
observed . . .) without being derived from previous events5. Finally, these
relationships must be asymmetric: if A is a cause of B, then B cannot simul-
taneously be a cause of A6. In my experience, scientists generally accept
these four properties. In fact, so long as I avoid asking for definitions, I find
that there is a large degree of agreement between scientists on whether any
particular relationship should be considered causal or not. It might be of
some comfort to empirically trained biologists that the methods described
in this book are based on an almost empirical approach to causality. This is
because deductive definitions of philosophers are replaced with attributes
that working scientists have historically judged to be necessary for a rela-
tionship to be causal. However, this change of emphasis is, by itself, of little
use.
Next, we require a new mathematical language that is able to
express and manipulate these causal relationships. This mathematical lan-
guage is that of directed graphs7 (Pearl 1988; Spirtes, Glymour and Scheines
1993). Even this new mathematical language is not enough to be of practi-
cal use. Since, in the end, we wish to infer causal relationships from corre-
lational data, we need a logically rigorous way of translating between the
causal relationships encoded in directed graphs and the correlational rela-
tionships encoded in probability theory. Each of these requirements can
now be fulfilled.

15
The paradox of infinite regress is sometimes ‘solved’ by simply declaring a First Cause:
that which causes but which has no cause. This trick is hardly convincing because, if we
are allowed to invent such things by fiat, then we can declare them anywhere in the causal
chain. The antiquity of this paradox can been seen in the first sentence of the first verse
of Genesis: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ According to the
Confraternity Text of the Holy Bible, the Hebrew word that has been translated as
‘created’ was used only with reference to divine creation and meant ‘to create out of
nothing’.
16
This does not exclude feedback loops so long as we understand these to be dynamic in
nature: A causes B at time t, B causes A at time t⫹ ⌬t, and so on. This is discussed more
fully in Chapter 2.
17
Biologists will find it ironic that this graphical language was actually proposed by Wright
(1921), one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the twentieth century, but
his insight was largely ignored. This history is explored in Chapters 3 and 4.

6
 1.2 FISHER’S GENIUS AND THE RANDOMISED EXPERIMENT

1.2 Fisher’s genius and the randomised experiment

Since this book deals with causal inference from observational data, we
should first look more closely at how biologists infer causes from experi-
mental data. What is it about these experimental methods that allows scien-
tists to comfortably speak about causes? What is it about inferring causality
from non-experimental data that make them squirm in their chairs? I will
distinguish between two basic types of experiment: controlled and random-
ised. Although the controlled experiment takes historical precedence, the
randomised experiment takes precedence in the strength of its causal infer-
ences.
Fisher8 described the principles of the randomised experiment in
his classic The design of experiments (Fisher 1926). Since he developed many
of his statistical methods in the context of agronomy, let’s consider a typical
randomised experiment designed to determine whether the addition of a
nitrogen-based fertiliser can cause an increase in the seed yield of a partic-
ular variety of wheat. A field is divided into 30 plots of soil (50cm⫻50cm)
and the seed is sown. The treatment variable consists of the fertiliser, which
is applied at either 0 or 20kg/hectare. For each plot we place a small piece
of paper in a hat. One half of the pieces of paper have a ‘0’ and the other
half have a ‘20’ written on them. After thoroughly mixing the pieces of
paper, we randomly draw one for each plot to determine the treatment level
that each plot is to receive. After applying the appropriate level of fertiliser
independently to each plot, we make no further manipulations until harvest
day, at which time we weigh the seed that is harvested from each plot.
The seed weight per plot is normally distributed within each treat-
ment group. Those plots receiving no fertiliser produce 55g of seed with a
standard error of 6. Those plots receiving 20kg/hectare of fertiliser produce
80g of seed with a standard error of 6. Excluding the possibility that a very
rare random event has occurred (with a probability of approximately
5⫻10⫺8), we have very good evidence that there is a positive association
between the addition of the fertiliser and the increased yield of the wheat.
Here we see the first advantage of randomisation. By randomising the treat-
ment allocation, we generate a sampling distribution that allows us to cal-
culate the probability of observing a given result by chance if, in reality,
there is no effect of the treatment. This helps us to distinguish between
chance associations and systematic ones. Since one error that a researcher
can make is to confuse a real difference with a difference due to sampling
18
Sir Ronald A. Fisher (1890–1962) was chief statistician at the Rothamsted Agricultural
Station, (now IACR – Rothamsted), Hertfordshire. He was later Galton Professor at the
University of London and Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge.

7
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
and the tyranny of their Government shall soon be destroyed!" There
was a strong war spirit manifest in the House. Fox and his
diminished party combated it in vain. The same prevailing expression
was exhibited in a similar debate in the House of Lords, in which
Lord Loughborough—who, on the 20th of January, succeeded
Thurlow as Lord Chancellor—supported the views of Ministers. But
there was little time allowed for the two Houses to discuss the
question of peace or war, for on the 11th of February Dundas
brought down a royal message, informing the Commons that the
French had declared war on the 1st of February, against both Britain
and Holland. On the following day Pitt moved an Address to his
Majesty, expressing a resolve to support him in the contest against
France. In the debate, Burke declared the necessity of war against a
nation which had, in fact, proclaimed war against every throne and
nation. At the same time, he declared that it would be a war in
defence of every principle of order or religion. It would not be the
less a most desperate war. France was turning almost every subject
in the realm into a soldier. It meant to maintain its armies on the
plunder of invaded nations. Trade being ruined at home by the
violence of mob rule, the male population was eager to turn soldiers,
and to live on the spoils of the neighbouring countries. Lyons alone,
he said, had thirty thousand artisans destitute of employment; and
they would find a substitute for their legitimate labour in ravaging
the fields of Holland and Germany. He deemed war a stern necessity.
A similar Address was moved and carried in the Peers.
On the 18th of February, however, Fox moved a string of resolutions
condemnatory of war with France. They declared that that country
was only doing what every country had a right to do—reorganise its
internal Constitution; that, as we had allowed Russia, Prussia, and
Austria to dismember Poland, we had no right to check the
aggressions of France on these countries; as we had remained
quiescent in the one case, we were bound to do so in the other, and
not to make ourselves confederates of the invasion of Poland; and
his final resolution went to entreat his Majesty not to enter into any
engagements with other Powers which should prevent us from
making a separate peace with France. Burke did not lose the
opportunity of rebuking Fox for his long advocacy of the Empress
Catherine, whose unprincipled share in the partition of Poland he
was now compelled to reprobate. The resolutions of Fox were
negatived by two hundred and seventy votes against forty-four. Not
daunted by this overwhelming majority, Fox again, on the 21st of
February, brought forward his resolution in another form, declaring
that there were no sufficient causes for war. The motion was
negatived without a division.

TRIAL OF LOUIS XVI. (See p. 409.)

[See larger version]
During these debates, Ministers detailed the proceedings which had
for some time past taken place between the Governments of France
and Britain, to show that the maintenance of peace was impossible.
The chief of these transactions were briefly these:—From the date of
the conferences at Pillnitz in 1791, when Prussia and Austria
resolved to embrace the cause of the French king, and invited the
other Powers to support them, Britain declared, both to those
Powers and to France, her intention of remaining neutral. It was no
easy matter to maintain such neutrality. To the Jacobin leaders,
every country with an orderly Government, and still more a
monarchy, was an offence. Against Britain they displayed a particular
animus, which the most friendly offices did not remove. When,
towards the end of 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Man
having reached St. Domingo, the negroes rose in insurrection to
claim these rights, Lord Effingham, the Governor of Jamaica, aided
the French Colonial Government with arms and ammunition, and the
fugitive white people with provisions and protection. When this was
notified to the National Assembly, with the King of Britain's approval
of it, by Lord Gower, the ambassador at Paris, a vote of thanks was
passed, but only to the British nation, and on condition that not even
Lord Effingham's name should be mentioned in it. Other transactions
on the part of the French still more offensive took place from time to
time, but Britain still maintained her neutrality. When war was
declared by France against Austria, in April, 1792, Chauvelin
announced the fact to the British Government, and requested that
British subjects should be prohibited from serving in any foreign
army against France. Government at once issued an order to that
effect. In June the French Government, through Chauvelin,
requested the good offices of Britain in making pacific proposals to
Prussia and Austria; but find that France expected more than
friendly mediation—actual armed coalition with France—the British
Government declined this, as contrary to existing alliances with
those Powers. The proclamations of the French Government were
already such as breathed war to Europe; all thrones were menaced
with annihilation. At this time Mr. Miles, who exerted himself to
maintain a friendly feeling between the nations, records, in his
correspondence with the French Minister Lebrun and others, that
Roland declared to one of his friends that peace was out of the
question; that France had three hundred thousand men in arms, and
that the Ministers must make them march as far as ever their legs
could carry them, or they would return and cut all their throats.
This was the state of things when, on the 17th of August, 1792, the
French deposed Louis, and prepared for his death. Lord Gower was
thereupon recalled, on the plain ground that, being accredited alone
to the king, and there being no longer a king, his office was at an
end; he was, however, ordered to take a respectful leave, and to
assure the Government that Britain still desired to maintain peaceful
relations. Yet at this very time London was swarming with paid
emissaries of the French Government, whose business was to draw
over the people to French notions of republican liberty. Nay, more,
Lebrun, the Foreign Minister, took no pains to conceal the assurance
of the French that Ireland would revolt and that France would secure
it. On the 18th of November a great dinner was given at White's
Hotel in Paris, at which Lord Edward Fitzgerald and other Irish
Republicans, Thomas Paine, Santerre, and a host of like characters,
English, Irish, French, and others, toasted the approaching National
Convention of Great Britain and Ireland, and amid wild acclamations
drank the sentiment, "May revolutions never be made by halves!"
The very next day, the 19th, the National Convention issued its
decree, declaring war against all thrones and proclaiming the
enfranchisement of all peoples. This was immediately followed by
Jacobinised deputations of Englishmen, thanking the Convention for
this proclamation; and the President, in reply, said, "Citizens of the
world! Royalty in Europe is utterly destroyed, or on the point of
perishing on the ruins of feudality; and the Rights of Man, placed by
the side of thrones, are a devouring fire which will consume them
all. Worthy Republicans! Congratulate yourselves on the festival
which you have celebrated in honour of the French Revolution—the
prelude to the festival of nations!"
Before the close of 1792 the French resolved to send an ambassador
to the United States to demand a return of the aid given to the
Americans in their revolution, by declaration of war against Great
Britain. M. Genet was dispatched for this purpose at the beginning of
1793. Still neutrality was maintained, though our ambassador was
withdrawn from Paris, and M. Chauvelin was no longer recognised in
an official capacity by the British Court. This gentleman, however,
continued in London, ignoring the loss of his official character, and
officiously pressing himself on the attention of Ministers as still
French plenipotentiary. Lord Grenville was repeatedly obliged to
remind him that he had no power to correspond with him officially.
He, however, informed him privately that, if the French Government
wished to be duly recognised in Great Britain, they must give up
their assumed right of aggression on neighbouring countries and of
interference with established Governments. The French Girondist
Ministers took advantage of this letter which Chauvelin transmitted
to them to send a reply, in which, however, having now invaded
Holland, they gave no intimation of any intention of retiring. They
even declared that it was their intention to go to war with Britain;
and if the British Government did not comply with their desires, and
enter into regular communication with them, they would prepare for
war. Lord Grenville returned this letter, informing Chauvelin again
that he could receive no official correspondence from him in a
private capacity. This was on the 7th of January, 1793; Chauvelin
continued to press his communications on Lord Grenville,
complaining of the Alien Bill, and on the 18th presented letters of
credence. Lord Grenville informed him, in reply, that his Majesty in
the present circumstances could not receive them. These
circumstances were the trial and conviction of Louis XVI. On the
24th arrived the news of Louis's execution, and Chauvelin
immediately received passports for himself and suite, and an order
to quit the kingdom within eight days. This order created the utmost
exultation in the French Convention, for the Jacobins were rabid for
war with all the world, and on the 1st of February the Convention
declared war against Britain, and the news reached London on the
4th. Such was the Ministerial explanation.
The declaration of war against Britain by the Convention was
unanimous. The decree was drawn up by the Girondists, but it was
enthusiastically supported by the Jacobins, including Robespierre
and Danton. A vote creating assignats to the amount of eight
hundred million livres was immediately passed, a levy of three
hundred thousand men was ordered, and to aggravate the whole
tone of the affair, an appeal to the people of Great Britain was
issued, calling on them to act against and embarrass their own
Government.
It must be confessed that it was impossible to keep peace with a
nation determined to make war on the whole world. Perhaps on no
occasion had the pride of the British people and their feelings of
resentment been so daringly provoked. War was proclaimed against
Britain, and it was necessary that she should put herself in a position
to protect her own interests. The country was, moreover, bound to
defend Holland if assaulted. But though bound by treaty to defend
Holland, Great Britain was not bound to enter into the defence of all
and every one of the Continental nations; and had she maintained
this just line of action, her share in the universal war which ensued
would have been comparatively insignificant. Prussia, Russia, and
Austria had destroyed every moral claim of co-operation by their
lawless seizure of Poland, and the peoples of the Continent were
populous enough to defend their own territories, if they were worthy
of independence. There could be no just claim on Britain, with her
twenty millions of inhabitants, to defend countries which possessed
a still greater number of inhabitants, especially as they had never
been found ready to assist us, but on the contrary. But Britain,
unfortunately, at that time, was too easily inflamed with a war spirit.
The people as well as the Government were incensed at the
disorganising and aggressive spirit of France, and were soon drawn
in, with their Quixotism of fighting for everybody or anybody, to
league with the Continental despots for the purpose not merely of
repelling French invasions, but of forcing on the French a dynasty
that they had rejected.
Fox and his party still maintained a vigorous and persevering
endeavour to remain at peace; but he weakened his efforts by
professing to believe that we might yet enter into substantial
engagements with the French, who had at this moment no
permanent settled Government at all, but a set of puppet Ministers,
ruled by a Convention, and the Convention ruled by a mob flaming
with the ideas of universal conquest and universal plunder. If Fox
had advocated the wisdom of maintaining the defensive as much as
possible, and confining ourselves to defending our Dutch allies, as
we were bound, his words would have had more weight; but his
assurance that we might maintain a full and friendly connection with
a people that were butchering each other at home, and belying all
their most solemn professions of equity and fraternity towards their
dupes abroad, only enabled Pitt to ask him with whom he would
negotiate—Was it with Robespierre, or the monster Marat, then in
the ascendant? "But," added Pitt, "it is not merely to the character of
Marat, with whom we would now have to treat, that I object; it is
not to the horror of those crimes which have stained their legislators
—crimes in every stage rising above one another in enormity,—but I
object to the consequences of that character, and to the effect of
those crimes. They are such as render a negotiation useless, and
must entirely deprive of stability any peace which could be
concluded in such circumstances. The moment that the mob of Paris
comes under a new leader, mature deliberations are reversed, the
most solemn engagements are retracted, or free will is altogether
controlled by force. All the crimes which disgrace history have
occurred in one country, in a space so short, and with circumstances
so aggravated, as to outrun thought and exceed imagination." In
fact, to have made an alliance with France at that moment, and for
long afterwards, would have been to sanction her crimes, and to
share the infamy of her violence and lawlessness abroad.
In the presence of this great exciting cause the remaining business
of the Session of the British Parliament appeared tame. Mr. R. Smith
introduced a petition for Parliamentary reform from Nottingham, and
this was followed by a number of similar petitions from other places:
but whilst French emissaries and English demagogues were
preaching up revolution, nobody would listen to reform, and a
motion of Mr. Grey, to refer these petitions to a committee, was
rejected by two hundred and eighty-two votes to forty-one. On the
25th of February Dundas introduced an optimistic statement of the
affairs of India, declaring that dependency as very flourishing, in
spite of the continuance of the war with Tippoo; and this was
preparatory to a renewal of the charter of the East India Company,
which was carried on the 24th of May. Francis, Fox, and others,
opposed the Bill, and made very different statements in vain. The
real condition of India was not destined to force itself on the nation
till it came in the shape of a bloody insurrection, and seventy million
pounds of debt, more than sixty years afterwards.
On the 6th of March the first blessings of war began to develop
themselves in the announcement, by Pitt, that his Majesty had
engaged a body of his Hanoverian troops to assist the Dutch; and,
on the 11th, by his calling on the House to form itself into a
Committee of Ways and Means to consider the propriety of raising a
loan of four millions and a half, and of issuing four millions of
Exchequer Bills, in addition to the ordinary revenue, to meet the
demands of the year. Resolutions for both these purposes were
passed; and, on the 15th, a Bill was introduced, making it high
treason for any one to sell to the French any muniments of war,
bullion, or woollen cloth. Fox and his party opposed this Bill, but it
was readily carried through both Houses.
The repulse of the French in their attack on Holland, and their
repeated defeats in Belgium, which will be mentioned in the next
chapter, induced the French Government to make overtures for
peace with Britain, but in a secret and most singular way. Instead of
an open proposal through some duly-accredited envoy, the proposals
came through a Mr. John Salter, a public notary of Poplar. This notary
delivered to Lord Grenville two letters from Lebrun the French
Foreign Minister, dated the 2nd of April, stating that France was
desirous to accommodate its differences with Britain, and, provided
the idea was accepted, M. Marat should be sent over with full
powers, on passports being duly forwarded. A Mr. John Matthews, of
Biggin House, Surrey, attested that these notes were perfectly
genuine, and had been signed in the presence of himself and Mr.
John Salter. Lord Grenville, suspecting a correspondence coming
through so extraordinary a medium, and believing that the design of
the French was only to gain time, in order to recover their losses,
took no notice of the letters. Moreover, as the Jacobins were then
following up their attacks on the Girondists from day to day, he saw
no prospect of any permanence of this party in power. In fact, they
were expelled by the 2nd of June, and on the 22nd of that month
Lebrun was in flight to avoid arrest. Marat arrived, but held no
communications with Grenville, and very shortly returned to France.
Soon afterwards came indirect overtures through Dumouriez to our
ambassador, Lord Auckland, but they were too late. War had been
declared.
Before the close of April a great commercial crisis had taken place in
England, and Ministers were compelled to make a new issue, by
consent of Parliament, of five millions of Exchequer Bills, to assist
merchants and manufacturers, under proper security. The sudden
expansion of industry which was met by an undue increase of the
paper currency rather than bullion, combined with reckless banking,
produced the crisis. It was calculated that out of the 350 provincial
banks 100 failed. In the circumstances the issue of Exchange Bills
was a most successful makeshift.
 ROBESPIERRE.
[See larger version]
Fox did not suffer the Session to close without another powerful
effort to avoid war with France. A petition had been handed to him
for presentation to the Commons, drawn up by Mr. Gurney of
Norwich, and signed by the Friends and other inhabitants of that
city, praying that peace with France might be concluded. Fox not
only agreed to present it and support its prayer, but he earnestly
exhorted Mr. Gurney and his friends to promote the sending of
petitions from other places for this object, as the only means of
influencing the House, bent determinedly on war. On the 17th of
June, only four days before the close of the Session, Fox moved an
Address to the Crown, praying that, as the French had been driven
out of Holland, peace should be made. In pursuance of his object—a
great one, if attainable—he did not spare his former favourite, the
Empress of Russia, and the other royal robbers of Poland. Burke
replied that Fox knew very well that the defence of Holland was but
a very partial motive for the war. The real obstacles to peace were
the avowed principles of the French—those of universal conquest, of
annexation of the kingdoms conquered, as already Alsace, Savoy,
and Belgium; their attempts on the Constitution of Great Britain by
insidious means; the murder of their own monarch held up as an
example to all other nations. To make peace with France, he said
truly, was to declare war against the rest of Europe, which was
threatened by France; and he asked with whom in France should we
negotiate for peace, if so disposed? Should it be with Lebrun,
already in a dungeon, or with Clavière, who was hiding from those
who were anxious to take his head? or with Egalité, who had been
consigned to a dungeon at Marseilles? Burke declared that you
might as well attempt to negotiate with a quicksand or a whirlwind
as with the present ever-shifting and truculent factions which ruled
in France.
The motion of Fox was negatived by a large majority, and on the
21st of June the king prorogued Parliament.
 CHAPTER XVI.
THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).
Invasion of Holland by Dumouriez—He is defeated at
Neerwinden and goes over to the Enemy—Second Partition of
Poland—The Campaign in the Netherlands—And on the Rhine—
The English Fleets in the Channel and West Indies—Siege of
Toulon—First appearance of Napoleon Buonaparte—Fall of Lyons
—The Reign of Terror—Insurrection in La Vendée—Its brutal
Suppression—Worship of the Goddess of Reason—Opposition to
the War in England—Prosecutions for Sedition—Trials in
Scotland—Discussions on the subject in Parliament—Arrests of
Horne Tooke, Thelwall, Hardy, and others—Battle of the First of
June—The War in the West Indies—Annexation of Corsica—The
Campaign of 1794—The Prussian Subsidy—Successes of
Pichegru against the Austrians—The Struggle for the Sambre—
Loss of Belgium—Danger of Holland—The War in the South—
The Reign of Terror continues—The Festival of the Supreme
Being—Death of Robespierre and his Associates—The
Thermidorians—Final extinction of Poland—The Portland Whigs
join the Ministry—Trials of Hardy, Horne Tooke, and their
Associates—Opening of Parliament—The Budget—Attempts at
Reform—Marriage of the Prince of Wales—His Allowance—The
French occupy Holland—It becomes a Republic—Prussia and
Spain leave the Coalition, but the War continues—Campaigns on
the Rhine and in Italy—The War in La Vendée and in Brittany—
The Expedition from England planned—Destruction of the
Expedition at Quiberon—Extinction of the War in La Vendée—
Establishment of the Directory—Attack on George the Third—
The Budget—Pitt's first Negotiations for Peace—Failure of Lord
 Malmesbury's Mission—Successes in the West Indies and Africa
—Expedition to Bantry Bay—The Campaign of 1796—Retreat of
the French—Napoleon's Italian Campaign—The Battles of Arcole
—A new British Loan—Suspension of Cash Payments—
Grievances of the Seamen—Mutiny at Portsmouth—Its
Pacification—Mutiny at the Nore—Descent on the Welsh Coast—
Campaign of 1797—Preliminaries of Leoben—Treaty of Campo
Formio—Lord Malmesbury's Mission to Lille.

Dumouriez was now making his projected attack upon Holland. On

the 17th of February, 1793, he entered the Dutch territory, and
issued a proclamation, promising friendship to the Batavians, and
war only to the Stadtholder and his British allies. His success was
brief, and he was soon forced back at all points. He received
peremptory orders from the Convention to retire into Belgium. He
obeyed with reluctance. On Dumouriez' return to Belgium, he was
greatly incensed at the wholesale rapacity of the Commissioners of
the Convention. They had plundered the churches, confiscated the
property of the clergy and the wealthy inhabitants, and driven the
people, by their insolence and violence, into open revolt. He did not
satisfy himself by simply reproving these cormorants by words; he
seized two of the worst of them, and sent them to Paris under a
military guard. General Moreton-Chabrillant, who defended the
Commissioners, he summarily dismissed; he restored the plate to
the churches, as far as he was able, and issued orders for putting
down the Jacobin clubs in the army. On the 16th of March he was
attacked at Neerwinden by the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, and after a
sharply-fought field, in which both himself and the Duke of Chartres
fought bravely, he was routed with a loss of four thousand killed and
wounded, and the desertion of ten thousand of his troops, who fled
at a great rate, never stopping till they entered France, and,
spreading in all directions, they caused the most alarming rumours
of Dumouriez' conduct and the advance of the enemy. The
Convention at once dispatched Danton and Lacroix to inquire into his
proceedings, and, roused by all these circumstances, no sooner had
these two envoys left him than he entered into communication with
the Prince of Saxe-Coburg. Colonel Mack, an Austrian officer, was
appointed to confer with Dumouriez, and it was agreed that he
should evacuate Brussels, and that then the negotiation should be
renewed. Accordingly, the French retired from Brussels on the 25th
of March, and on the 27th they encamped at Ath, where Dumouriez
and Mack again met. The result of this conference was the
agreement of Dumouriez to abandon the Republic altogether, to
march rapidly on Paris, and disperse the Convention and the mother
society of the Jacobins. His designs, however, were suspected by the
Jacobins, and he was eventually compelled to go over to the enemy
almost alone. Dampierre, who had been appointed by the
Convention to supersede Dumouriez, took the command of the army,
and established himself in the camp at Famars, which covered
Valenciennes. He was there attacked, on the 8th of May, by the
combined armies of Austrians, Prussians, English, and Dutch, under
Clairfayt, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke of York. He was
defeated with terrible slaughter, four thousand men being killed and
wounded, whilst the Allies stated their loss at only eight hundred
men. Dampierre himself lost a leg and died the next day. Lamarque,
who succeeded him, might have easily been made to retreat, for the
French were in great disorder; but the Allies had resolved to advance
no farther till Mayence should be retaken. Lamarque, therefore,
fortified himself in his camp at Famars, and remained unmolested till
the 23rd of the month. He was then attacked and beaten, but was
allowed to retire and encamp again between Valenciennes and
Bouchain. The Allies, instead of pushing their advantages, waited the
advance of the King of Prussia upon Mayence. Custine, who was put
in command of the Rhine, was enabled to keep back the Prince of
Hohenlohe, who had but an inconsiderable force, the King of Prussia
having been compelled to send a large force to Poland, instead of
forwarding it according to agreement to the Rhine.
In fact, whilst these events had been proceeding on the frontiers of
France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria had been dividing Poland
amongst them. The King of Prussia, when contemplating his
participation in this vile business, issued a proclamation assigning
the most virtuous reasons for it. It was to check the spread of
French principles in Poland, which had compelled himself and his
amiable allies, the Empress of Russia and the Emperor of Germany,
to invade Poland. But these pretences were merely a cloak for a
shameless robbery. Poland abutted on Prussia with the desirable
ports of Thorn and Dantzic, and therefore Great Poland was
especially revolutionary in the eyes of Frederick William of Prussia.
The Polish Diet exposed the hollowness of these pretences in a
counter-manifesto. This produced a manifesto from Francis of
Austria, who declared that the love of peace and good
neighbourhood would not allow him to oppose the intentions of
Prussia, or permit any other Power to interfere with the efforts of
Russia and Prussia to pacify Poland; in fact, his love of peace would
not allow him to discountenance an aggressive war, but his love of
good neighbourhood would allow him to permit the most flagrant
breach of good neighbourhood. As for the Empress of Russia, she
had a long catalogue of ingratitude against the Poles, in addition to
their Jacobinical principles, and for these very convenient reasons
she had now taken possession of certain portions of that kingdom,
and called on all the inhabitants of these districts to swear allegiance
to her immediately. The Empress having thus broken the ice of her
real motives, the King of Prussia no longer pretended to conceal his,
but called on all the inhabitants of Great Poland to swear allegiance
to him forthwith. The Russian Ambassador at Grodno commanded
the Poles to carry these orders of Russia and Prussia into effect by a
circular dated the 9th of April. The great Polish Confederation, which
had invited the interference of Russia in order to carry out their own
party views, were much confounded by these announcements of
their friends. They reminded the marauders of the engagements
entered into by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, at the time of the
former partition, to guarantee the integrity of the remainder. But this
was merely parleying with assassins with the knife at their throats.
The aggressive Powers by force of arms compelled poor King
Poniatowski and the nobles to assemble a Diet, and draw up and
sign an instrument for the alienation of the required territories. By
this forced cession a territory, containing a population of more than
three millions and a half, was made over to Russia; and another
territory to Prussia, containing a million and a half of inhabitants,
together with the navigation of the Vistula, with the port of Thorn on
that great river, and of Dantzic on the Baltic, so long coveted. As for
the small remainder of what once had been Poland, which was left
to that shadow-king, Poniatowski, it was bound down under all the
old oppressive regulations, and had Russian garrisons at Warsaw
and other towns. But all these Powers were compelled to maintain
large garrisons in their several sections of the appropriated country.

VIEW IN THE OLD TOWN, WARSAW.

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Thus it happened that the King of Prussia, with hands full of
aggression, did not appear on the Rhine to chastise the aggressions
of France, before the month of April. He brought with him about fifty
thousand men, Prussians, Saxons, Hessians, and Bavarians. He was
joined by fifteen or twenty thousand Austrians, under Wurmser, and
five or six thousand French Emigrants under the Prince of Condé.
But the French had on the Rhine one hundred and forty thousand
men at least, of whom twenty thousand were within the walls of
Mayence. The Prussians laid siege to that city, and the Austrians and
British to Valenciennes. On the 21st of July the French engaged to
give up Mayence on condition that they should be allowed to march
out with the honours of war, and this the King of Prussia was weak
enough to comply with. They must, of necessity, have soon
surrendered at discretion; now they were at liberty to join the rest of
the army and again resist the Allies. Valenciennes did not surrender
until the 28th of July, and not till after a severe bombardment by the
Duke of York. Thus three months of the summer had been wasted
before these two towns, during which time the French had been
employed in drawing forces from all quarters to the frontiers of
Belgium, under the guidance of Carnot. The Duke of York was
recalled from Valenciennes to Menin, to rescue the hereditary Prince
of Orange from an overwhelming French force, against which his
half-Jacobinised troops showed no disposition to act. Having effected
his deliverance, the Duke of York marched on Dunkirk, and began,
towards the end of August, to invest it; but he was left unsupported
by the Prince of Orange, and being equally neglected by the
Austrians, he was compelled to raise the siege on the 7th of
September, and retreated with the loss of his artillery. The Prince of
Orange was himself not long unassailed. Houchard drove him from
Menin, and took Quesnoy from him, but was, in his turn, routed by
the Austrian general Beaulieu, and chased to the very walls of Lille.
According to the recent decree of the Convention, that any general
surrendering a town or post should be put to death, Houchard was
recalled to be guillotined. There continued a desultory sort of
warfare on the Belgian frontiers for the remainder of the campaign.
On the 15th and 16th of October Jourdain drove the Duke of Coburg
from the neighbourhood of Maubeuge across the Sambre, but the
Duke of York coming up with fresh British forces, which had arrived
at Ostend under Sir Charles Grey, the French were repulsed, and the
Netherland frontiers maintained by the Allies for the rest of the year.
 RETREAT OF THE ROYALISTS FROM TOULON. (See p. 423.)
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On the Rhine, the war was carried on quite into the winter. The King
of Prussia did not stay longer than to witness the surrender of
Mayence; he then hurried away to look after his new Polish territory,
and left the army under the command of the Duke of Brunswick.
Brunswick, in concert with Wurmser and his Austrians, attacked and
drove the French from their lines at Weissenburg, took from them
Lauter, and laid siege to Landau. Wurmser then advanced into
Alsace, which the Germans claimed as their old rightful territory, and
invested Strasburg. But the Convention Commissioners, St. Just and
Lebas, defended the place vigorously. They called forces from all
quarters; they terrified the people into obedience by the guillotine,
Lebas saying that with a little guillotine and plenty of terror he could
do anything. But he did not neglect to send for the gallant young
Hoche, and put him at the head of the army. Wurmser was
compelled to fall back; Hoche marched through the defiles of the
Vosges, and, taking Wurmser by surprise, defeated him, made many
prisoners, and captured a great part of Wurmser's cannon. In
conjunction with Pichegru, Dessaix, and Michaud, he made a
desperate attack, on the 26th of December, on the Austrians in the
fortified lines of Weissenburg, whence they had so lately driven the
French; but the Duke of Brunswick came to their aid, and enabled
the Austrians to retire in order. Hoche again took possession of
Weissenburg; the Austrians retreated across the Rhine, and the
Duke of Brunswick and his Prussians fell back on Mayence. Once
there, dissatisfied with the Prussian officers, he resigned his
command, he and Wurmser parting with much mutual recrimination.
Wurmser was not able long to retain Mayence; and the French not
only regained all their old positions, before they retired to winter
quarters, but Hoche crossed the lines and wintered in the Palatinate,
the scene of so many French devastations in past wars. The French
also repulsed the enemy on the Spanish and Sardinian frontiers.
Though war had long been foreseen with France, when it took place
we had no fleet in a proper condition to put to sea. It was not till the
14th of July that Lord Howe, who had taken the command of the
Channel fleet, sailed from Spithead with fifteen ships of the line,
three of which were first-rates, but none of them of that speed and
equipment which they ought to have been. He soon obtained
intelligence of a French fleet of seventeen sail of the line, seen
westward of Belleisle. He sent into Plymouth, and had two third-rate
vessels added to his squadron. On the 31st of July he caught sight
of the French fleet, but never came up with them, the French ships
being better sailers. After beating about in vain, he returned to port,
anchoring in Torbay on the 4th of September. At the end of October
Howe put to sea again with twenty-four sail of the line and several
frigates, and several times came near the French fleet, but could
never get to engage. He, however, protected our merchant vessels
and disciplined his sailors. One French ship was taken off Barfleur by
Captain Saumarez of the Crescent, and that was all.
In the West Indies a small squadron and some land troops took the
islands of Tobago, St. Pierre, and Miquelon. At the invitation of the
planters, we also took possession of the western or French portion
of St. Domingo; but in Martinique, where we had had the same
invitation, the Royalist French did not support our efforts according
to promise, and the enterprise failed from the smallness of the force
employed. Besides these transactions, there occurred a severe fight
between Captain Courteney, of the frigate Boston, with only thirty-
two guns and two hundred men, and the Ambuscade, a French
frigate of thirty-six guns and four hundred picked men, in which both
received much damage, and in which Captain Courteney was killed,
but in which the Frenchman was compelled to haul off. In the East
Indies we again seized Pondicherry, and all the small factories of the
French.
The great maritime struggle of the year was at Toulon. The south of
France was then in active combination against the Convention and
the Jacobin faction. There was a determination in Toulon, Marseilles,
and other places on the coast to support the Royalist party in Aix,
Lyons, and other cities. For this purpose they invited the British to
co-operate with them. Lord Hood, having obtained from the people
of Toulon an engagement to surrender the fleet and town to him, to
be held for Louis XVII., arrived before that port in July, with,
however, only seven ships of the line, four frigates, and some
smaller vessels. Nearly all the old Royalist naval officers were
collected in Toulon, and were so eager for revenge on the Jacobin
officers and sailors—who had not only superseded them, but had
persecuted them with all the savage cruelty of their faction—that
they were all for surrendering their fleet to Lord Hood, and putting
him in possession of the forts and batteries. There was a firm
opposition to this on the part of the Republicans, both in the fleet
and the town, but it was carried against them. Besides the Royalist
townsmen, there were ten thousand Provençals in arms in the town
and vicinity. As General Cartaux had defeated the Royalists at
Marseilles, taken possession of the town, and, after executing severe
measures on the Royalists there, was now in full march for Toulon,
there was no time to be lost. Lord Hood landed a body of men under
Captain Elphinstone, to whom the forts commanding the port were
quietly surrendered. Lord Hood was thus at once put into possession
of the best French port in the Mediterranean, and a great fleet, with
all the stores and ammunition. But he knew very well that the place
itself could not long be maintained against the whole force of
Republican France. He resolved, however, to defend the inhabitants,
who had placed themselves in so terrible a position with their
merciless countrymen, to the utmost of his power. He therefore
urged the Spaniards to come to his assistance, and they sent several
vessels, and three thousand men. He received reinforcements of
ships and men from Naples—the queen of which was sister to Marie
Antoinette—and from Sardinia. Fresh vessels and men also arrived
from England. Lord Mulgrave arrived from Italy, and at Lord Hood's
request assumed command, for the time, of the land forces.
General Cartaux arrived and took up his position in the villages
around Toulon. He was reinforced by General Doppet, from the
Rhone, and General Dugommier, from the Var; and the latter had in
his corps-d'armée a young lieutenant of artillery, who contained in
his yet unknown person the very genius of war—namely, Napoleon
Buonaparte. Cartaux was a man who had risen from the ranks;
Doppet had been a physician in Savoy; and Dugommier was acting
on a plan sent from the Convention. Buonaparte suggested what he
thought a much superior plan. "All you need," he said, "is to send
away the English; and to do that, you have only to sweep the
harbour and the roadstead with your batteries. Drive away the ships,
and the troops will not remain. Take the promontory of La Grasse,
which commands both the inner and outer harbour, and Toulon will
be yours in a couple of days." On this promontory stood two forts,
Equilette and Balaquier, which had been much strengthened by the
English. It was resolved to assault these forts, and batteries opposite
to them were erected by the French under Buonaparte's direction.
After much desperate fighting, vast numbers of troops being pressed
against the forts, that of Balaquier was taken. This gave the French
such command of the inner harbour, that Lord Hood called a council
of war, and showed the necessity of retiring with the fleet, and thus
enabling the Royalists to escape, who would otherwise be
exterminated by their merciless countrymen. This was agreed to,
and it was resolved to maintain the different forts till the ships had
cleared out. The Neapolitans behaved very ill, showing no regard for
anything but their own safety. They held two forts—one at Cape
Lebrun, and the other at Cape Lesset; these, they said, they would
surrender as soon as the enemy approached. They made haste to
get their ships and men out of harbour, leaving all else to take care
of themselves. The Spaniards and Piedmontese behaved in a much
nobler manner. They assisted willingly all day in getting on board the
Royalists—men, women, and children. All night the troops began to
defile through a narrow sallyport to the boats under the guns of the
fort La Malaga. This was happily effected; and then Sir Sidney Smith,
who had recently arrived at Toulon, and had volunteered the
perilous office of blowing up the powder-magazines, stores,
arsenals, and the ships that could not be removed, began his
operations. He succeeded in setting fire to the stores and about forty
ships of war that were in the harbour.
After the departure of the British fleet, the Jacobin troops,
townsmen, and galley convicts, were perpetrating the most horrible
scenes on the unfortunate Toulonese. Even the poor workmen who
had been employed by the English to strengthen the defences, were
collected in hundreds, and cut down by discharges of grape-shot.
Three Jacobin commissioners, the brother of Robespierre, Barras,
and Freron, were sent to purge the place, and besides the grape-
shot the guillotine was in daily activity exterminating the people. The
very mention of the name of Toulon was forbidden, and it was
henceforth to be called Port de la Montagne.
The troops of the Convention were equally successful against Lyons.
It was speedily invested by numerous troops, under the command of
Dubois-Crancé, one of the Commissioners of the Convention. On the
21st of August he summoned the place to surrender, but the
Lyonese held out till the 2nd of October, when Couthon, one of the
most ruthless of the Jacobin deputies, arrived, with twenty-eight
thousand armed peasants, from Auvergne. He demanded that the
city should be instantly bombarded, and, if necessary, reduced to
ruins. Dubois-Crancé said there was no need for this merciless
alternative, as the place must very soon yield from famine. Couthon
thereupon obtained an order from the Convention to supersede
Dubois-Crancé, as devoid of proper Republican zeal; and on the 7th
of October commenced a terrible bombardment. The inhabitants
came to a parley with Couthon, and agreed to surrender without
conditions. Couthon immediately appointed a committee to try all
rebels, and he sent his opinion of the population at large to the
Convention, describing the people as of three kinds—the wicked rich,
the proud rich, and the ignorant poor, who were too stupid to be
good Republicans. He proposed to guillotine the first class, to seize
the property of the second, and to remove the last into different
quarters of France. The Convention adopted his views cordially, and
passed a decree that Lyons should be destroyed; that nothing should
be left but the houses of the poor, the manufactories, the hospitals,
the school of arts, the public schools, and public monuments; that
the name of Lyons should be buried for ever, and that on its ruins
should be erected a monument bearing this inscription:—"Lyons
made war against liberty: Lyons is no more!" The name of the spot
ever afterwards was to be the Liberated Commune. The massacres
were carried out by Collot d'Herbois.
The same scenes, but on a still larger scale, were exhibiting in the
capital. The Reign of Terror was fully inaugurated, and rapidly
extending itself. At first, on the expulsion of the Girondists from the
Convention—that is, in June—the guillotinings were only fourteen. In
July the number was about the same; but in August Robespierre
became a member of the Committee of Public Safety, which carried
on the machinery of government, and then the work went on
swimmingly. From the moment that Robespierre took his place on
the Committee, the stream of blood flowed freely and steadily. His
friend—if such monsters can be said to have any friends—Barrère,
who belonged to the timid Plain till the Girondists were overthrown,
now became his active agent. He proposed, on the 7th of August,
that William Pitt should be proclaimed the enemy of the whole
human race, and that a decree should be passed that every man had
a right to assassinate him. On the 9th it was announced that the
Republic was completed; that Hérault de Séchelles had produced a
new and perfect constitution, which was at once adopted by the
Convention. It was a constitution containing all the doctrines of the
Mountain, in the bombast of that truculent faction. As it was quickly
set aside, we need not detail its principles. Then this constitution
was celebrated on the 10th of August, the anniversary sacred to the
downfall of monarchy. Next followed fresh executions, among the
most notable victims being Marie Antoinette (October 16) and
Madame Roland (November 9), while most of the prominent
Girondists were hunted down and killed.
Whilst blood was thus flowing by the guillotine, not only in Paris,
but, under the management of Jacobin Commissioners, in nearly all
the large towns of France, especially Lyons, Bordeaux, and Nantes, a
terrible work of extermination was going on against the royalists of
La Vendée. The simple people of that province, primitive in their
habits and sincere in their faith, desired no Republic. Their
aristocracy, for the most part of only moderate possessions, lived
amongst them rather like a race of kindly country squires than great
lords, and the people were accordingly cordially attached to them. In
March of the year 1793 the Convention called for a conscription of
three hundred thousand, and the Vendéans, to a man, refused to
serve under a Government that had persecuted both their priests
and their seigneurs. This was the certain signal of civil war. Troops
were ordered to march into La Vendée, and compel obedience. Then
the peasants flew to arms, and called on the nobles and priests to
join them. At first they were entirely successful, but matters changed
when Kleber was put in practical command.
Their general, Lescure, was killed, and most of their other leaders
were severely wounded. Kleber triumphed over them by his weight
of artillery, and they now fled to the Loire. Amongst a number of
royalist nobles who had joined them from the army of the Prince of
Condé on the Rhine, was Prince de Talmont, a Breton noble,
formerly of vast property in Brittany, and now of much influence
there. He advised them, for the present, to abandon their country,
and take refuge amongst his countrymen, the Bretons. The whole of
this miserable and miscellaneous population, nearly a hundred
thousand in number, crowded to the edge of the Loire, impatient,
from terror and despair, to cross. Behind were the smoke of burning
villages and the thunder of the hostile artillery; before, was the
broad Loire, divided by a low long island, also crowded with
fugitives. La Roche-Jaquelein had the command of the Vendéans at
this trying moment; but the enemy, not having good information of
their situation, did not come up till the whole wretched and famished
multitude was over. On their way to Laval they were attacked both
by Westermann and Léchelle; but being now joined by nearly seven
thousand Bretons, they beat both those generals; and Léchelle, from
mortification and terror of the guillotine—now the certain punisher of
defeated generals—died. The Vendéans for a time, aided by the
Bretons, appeared victorious. They had two courses open before
them: one, to retire into the farthest part of Brittany, where there
was a population strongly inspired by their own sentiments, having a
country hilly and easy of defence, with the advantage of being open
to the coast, and the assistance of the British; the other, to advance
into Normandy, where they might open up communication with the
English through the port of Cherbourg. They took the latter route,
though their commander, La Roche-Jaquelein, was strongly opposed
to it. Stofflet commanded under Jaquelein. The army marched on in
great confusion, having the women and children and the waggons in
the centre. They were extremely ill-informed of the condition of the
towns which they approached. They might have taken Rennes and
St. Malo, which would have greatly encouraged the Bretons; but
they were informed that the Republican troops were overpowering
there. They did not approach Cherbourg for the same cause, being
told that it was well defended on the land side; they therefore
proceeded by Dol and Avranches to Granville, where they arrived on
the 14th of November. This place would have given them open
communication with the English, and at the worst an easy escape to
the Channel Islands; but they failed in their attempts to take it; and
great suspicion now having seized the people that their officers only
wanted to get into a seaport to desert them and escape to England,
they one and all protested that they would return to the Loire. In
vain did La Roche-Jaquelein demonstrate to them the fatality of such
a proceeding, and how much better it would be to make themselves
strong in Normandy and Brittany for the present; only about a
thousand men remained with him; the rest retraced their long and
weary way towards the Loire, though the Republicans had now
accumulated very numerous forces to bar their way. Fighting every
now and then on the road, and seeing their wives and children daily
drop from hunger and fatigue, they returned through Dol and
Pontorson to Angers: there they were repulsed by the Republicans.
They then retreated to Mons, where they again were attacked and
defeated, many of their women, who had concealed themselves in
the houses, being dragged out and shot down by whole platoons. At
Ancenis, Stofflet managed to cross the Loire; but the Republicans
got between him and his army, which, wedged in at Savenay,
between the Loire, the Vilaine, and the sea, was attacked by Kleber
and Westermann, and, after maintaining a desperate fight against
overwhelming numbers and a terrible artillery, was literally, with the
exception of a few hundred who effected their escape, cut to pieces,
and the women and children all massacred by the merciless
Jacobins. Carrier then proceeded to purge Nantes in the same style
as Collot d'Herbois had purged Lyons.
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, LIEUTENANT OF ARTILLERY.
(After the Portrait by J. B. Greuze.)
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These godless atrocities, these enormous murders, beyond all
historic precedent, proclaimed a people which had renounced God as
well as humanity; and they soon proceeded to avow this fact, and to
establish it by formal decree. In their rage for destroying everything
old, there was nothing that escaped them. They altered the mode of
computing time, and no longer used the Gregorian calendar, but
dated all deeds from the first year of Liberty, which they declared to
have commenced on the 22nd of September, 1792. The next and
greatest achievement was to dethrone the Almighty, and erect the
Goddess of Reason in His place. Under the auspices of the Goddess
of Reason they did a very unreasonable thing: they deprived all
working people and all working animals of one rest-day in every
month. Instead of having the four weeks and four Sundays in a
month, they decimalised the months, dividing them each into three
decades, or terms of ten days each, so that there were only three
rest-days, instead of four, in the month.
The British Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1794. The
Opposition, on the question of the Address, made a strong
remonstrance against the prosecution of the war. They urged the
miserable conduct of it, and the failures of the Allies, as arguments
for peace. They did not discourage the maintenance of a proper
system of self-defence, and therefore acceded to the demands of
Ministers for raising the navy to eighty-five thousand men. The
production of the Budget by Pitt, on the 2nd of February, gave
additional force to their appeals for peace. He stated that the
military force of England, including fencibles and volunteers,
amounted to a hundred and forty thousand men, and he called for
nineteen million nine hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds for
the maintenance of this force, and for the payment of sixty thousand
German troops. Besides this, he asked for a loan of eleven million
pounds, as well as for the imposition of new taxes. This was an
advance in annual expenditure of fifteen million pounds more than
only two years ago; and when the manner in which the money was
spent was inquired into, the objections became far more serious. It
thus appeared that we were not only fighting for Holland and
Belgium, but that we were subsidising German princes to fight their
own battles. There had been a large subsidy to the King of Prussia,
to assist him, in reality, to destroy Poland. We were, in fact, on the
threshold of that system of Pitt's, by which Britain engaged to do
battle all over Europe with money as well as with men. But
remonstrance was in vain. Fox, Grey, and Sheridan, and their party
in the Commons, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Duke of Bedford,
and the Whigs in the Peers, made amendment after amendment on
these points, but were overwhelmed by Pitt's majorities. Burke, in
the Commons, was frantic in advocacy of war, because France was
revolutionary and impious.
The anti-Gallic spirit was at the same time made violent use of to
crush opinion at home. It is true that there was a foolish zeal on
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