TO THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

JUNE 4, 1794.

[Independent Chronicle, June 5, 1794; a text is in the Massachusetts
Archives.]

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE AND

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

By an Act of the Legislature passed on the fourteenth of March, 1785,
intitled "An Act1 providing a place of confinement for thieves, and
other convicts to hard labor;" it is provided "that the Island within
the harbor of Boston, commonly called Castle-Island, shall be a place
for the reception, and secure confinement of all such persons as shall
be sentenced for confinement and hard labor, for the term of their
natural lives, or for any shorter space pursuant to the laws of the
Commonwealth."

According to this, and subsequent laws, a great number of persons have
been sentenced to confinement and hard labor; there are a number of
them at this time under sentences, some for the term of their lives,
and others for a shorter space of time.--There are particular regulations
provided by the Legislature of the Commonwealth, and particular modes
of discipline instituted for the government of such convicts.

This mode of punishment has been found by experience to be of great
utility in the preservation of good order, and the producing of safety
in the Commonwealth, and has a manifest tendency to render unnecessary