pulse given to manufacturing industry, has sprung, not from artificial and fugitive causes, but from the permanent wants and circumstances of the nation, which must ensure their further success and stability.

The flourishing condition of the cotton manufac tures, must be contemplated with increased pleasure, from the consideration, that the raw material is the growth of several of the southern States, and that while an increased intercourse between the two extremities of the Union must promote the interests of both, the union of all the States, under the influence of an equable and wise course of policy, will become more strongly cemented. And thus the United States, gradually developing their respective resourses, and bound together by the strong ties of interest, will continue to increase in wealth, in distinction and happiness.

I shall only add here one remark, on a subject equally connected with agriculture and manufactures. I refer to the raising of sheep. The high price of wool I am sensible has a tendency to call the attention of the farmer to the rearing of that useful animal. But it is apprehended, that until a plentiful supply of wool is afforded to the manufacturers, that branch of industry must continue depressed. The subject is recommended to your consideration.

In consequence of the death of the Honorable Timothy Bigelow, a vacancy took place in the Board of Commissioners appointed under the au thority of the act relating to the separation of

Maine, which vacancy has been filled by the appointment of the Honorable George Bliss to the same office. The joint Board has been in session in the Town of Boston, since the vacancy was filled, and were for some time assiduously engaged in the arduous duties of their appointment. The Commissioners adjourned in November to meet again in the month of February next. I shall cause to be laid before you a representation made to me by the Commissioners, by which you will be made acquainted with the measures they have thus far pursued, and the course which they propose to follow in further executing the responsible and difficult duties assigned them. Should nothing occur to render the intended surveys needless, the whole of the ensuing season will not be more than sufficient to accomplish the several contemplated objects. It is important to the interests of the Commonwealth that the right of option guaranteed to it by the provisions of the fifth article of the first section of the act above mentioned, should be retained and exercised agreeably thereto, as speedily as circumstances will admit. It would be of less moment to the Commonwealth that this part of the arrangement should be speedily adjusted by the Commissioners, were it not that the duties and obligations towards the Indians in the State of Maine are still binding on this State. I flatter myself that nothing on our part will be wanting to give full effect to the provisions of the act of separation, unless an equitable compromise can otherwise be effected.

It is not without reluctance that I request the

attention of the two Houses to the subject of the State Prison in Charlestown. But such is the condition of that important establishment, resulting, as I apprehend, from a radical defect in the original construction of the prison itself, that some further legislative interposition seems indispensable. And faithfulness to the public interest exacts of me a communication of such views of the subject, as no inconsiderable examination and reflection, and the share I have had in the supervision of that institution for the last ten years, have suggested.

The points to which I particularly allude, and to which I wish more especially to invoke your attention, relate to the number of solitary cells; to the dimensions of the sleeping rooms, and the construction of the workshops. Other objects connected with the ultimate design of the Legislature in establishing the prison, will offer themselves to your notice when the subject at large shall be investigated. My remarks will be chiefly directed to the several points I have suggested.

It will, I imagine, be conceded by all who have been possessed of the means of judging, that most of the mutinous disturbances which have arisen among the convicts may be ascribed to one, or to the union of all the circumstances above mentioned. The number of cells adapted to solitary confinement is so limited, that it has sometimes happened that there have been in the prison a greater number of convicts, under sentence to suffer solitary confinement, than there were cells to receive them; so that it has been physically impossible for the Warden

to carry into strict effect the sentences of the Courts of Judicature. Besides which, the paucity of cells has had a tendency to impair the discipline of the prison, inasmuch as the municipal government has been precluded from resorting to solitary confinement as a punishment for violations of the laws of the prison, which has been found from experience to be the most wholesome mode of punishing such offences.

In regard to the size of the sleeping apartments, some of them no doubt were constructed upon the idea that massive locks and doors would prove sufficient to ensure the safe keeping of the tenants of the prison. But by a report of the Directors of the State Prison, dated November nineteenth, one thousand eight hundred and twenty one, which will be laid before you, that idea is proved to be fallacious; and by the same report it will be seen, that the room in which the late conspiracy overtly commenced, contained no less than ten convicts. While such a number of men continue to be thus placed together, in one dormitory, which, under the present architectural arrangements of the prison, is unavoidable, combinations and projects for effecting escapes must be expected. Men of a restless spirit, rendered desperate by crimes and restraint, estimate but slightly, any personal dangers that may possibly be encountered in executing plans of escape. In several insurrections which have taken place in the prison, since its establishment, it has been satisfactorily proved, that they resulted from long previous contrivance and pre

paration, and that they included almost every convict in the prison; many, if not the most of whom, were armed or provided with deadly weapons, which had been forged in the workshops, and of materials purloined from the Commonwealth, or their immediate employers. Fortunately, these insurrections have been suppressed, if not earlier detected, at the point of execution; with great personal hazard, however, to the officers, and sometimes not without the use of military force, attended, in one instance, with the loss of the lives of several of the convicts. But though machinations for effecting mischief, are believed usually to be set on foot in the rooms intended for repose, yet the daily intercourse of the convicts, in the laboratories, in the yards of the prison, and at their meals, is improved to bring them to maturity. The single fact that I just mentioned, that in the several insurrections which have taken place, the prisoners have been found to be armed with deadly weapons which had been forged in the workshops, and of materials obtained by stealth, is a demonstrative proof of the want of adaption of the several apartments intended both for rest and labor, to the ultimate purposes of the institution.

From the best information I have been able to obtain by personal inquiry and otherwise, I am led to conclude that successive repetitions of such enormities as have heretofore occurred, are only to be avoided by a modification of the prison itself. The indiscriminate manner of commingling different classes of character, whether for repose, for meals,