detailed plan, without knowing more than we do of your local
circumstances, and the classes of patients you purpose to admit. I
doubt, however, whether you can do better than to adopt the general form
of the Wakefield Asylum, and as you are providing for only a small
number, it deserves consideration whether all the rooms might not be
advantageously placed on the ground floor. This plan affords great
facilities to easy inspection, and safe communication with airing
grounds, and the roof might project so far over the building, as to form
an excellent collonnade for the patients; which seems peculiarly
desirable under an American Sun.

With these views, I send a sketch drawn by the Architect whose plan is
to be adopted at Wakefield; and though it may not be, in many respects,
adapted to your particular wants, yet I hope it will not be altogether
useless. Should it be thought too expensive, I think the rooms, 1, 2,
and 3, might be dispensed with, and rooms marked "attendants, sick and
bath," might be appropriated to the patients during the day. The
attendants room is not a requisite, though it has been thought that it
would be more agreeable to patients of superior rank, not to have the
society of a servant. This, however, chiefly applies to the
convalescents, and these might occupy the room marked 'sick', whilst the
middle class, and the attendants, would be in the centre, marked
"attendants." A sick and bath room might probably be obtained in the
galleries: if you are inclined for the sake of appearance, to make the
centre building two stories high, you might bring the wings nearer to
the centre, and accommodate most of the convalescent patients with bed
rooms in the upper story. In this case, perhaps it would be desirable to
give the wings a radiating form. You will however be best able to modify
the sketch to your particular wants, if the general idea should meet
your approbation.

I observe with pleasure, that one leading feature of your new
institution, is the introduction of employment amongst the patients, an
object which I am persuaded is of the utmost importance in the moral
treatment of insanity. It is related of an institution in Spain, which
accommodated all ranks, and in which the lower class were generally
employed, that a great proportion of these recovered, whilst the number
of the Grandees was exceedingly small. It will however, require great
address to induce patients to engage in manual labour, who hav