It was a declared intention of the people of the United States, when they adopted our present constitution, "to form a more perfect union"--an important object indeed. The deliberate voice of the people is commonly the voice of reason--the voice of the people ought therefore to be attended to. Union, formed upon the genuine republican principles and views of our political institutions, by combining our strength, will have a powerful tendency in a time of war to reduce an unreasonable enemy to terms of Justice, and the re-establishment of tranquility; and in peace to secure the blessings of equal liberty to the present and future generations. Fellow-Citizens! It is my sincere and ardent wish, and I have a strong persuasion in my own mind, that wisdom and public spirit will guide you in all your deliberations and decisions. I will endeavor seasonably to dispatch such business as you shall lay before me during this session, and at all times, to support the true dignity of this Commonwealth in the station in which I have the honor of being placed, by a vigilant attention to its essential duties. SAMUEL ADAMS. 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 those sanguinary punishments which are too frequently inflicted in other Governments.