Beccaria, and other writers on crimes and punishments, had satisfied the
reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy of the punishment
of crimes by death; and hard labor on roads, canals, and other public
works, had been suggested as a proper substitute. The Revisors had
adopted these opinions; but the general idea of our country had not yet
advanced to that point. The bill, therefore, for proportioning crimes
and punishments, was lost in the House of Delegates by a majority of a
single vote. I learned afterwards, that the substitute of hard labor in
public, was tried (I believe it was in Pennsylvania) without success.
Exhibited as a public spectacle, with shaved heads, and mean clothing,
working on the high roads, produced in the criminals such a prostration
of character, such an abandonment of self-respect, as, instead of
reforming, plunged them into the most desperate and hardened depravity
of morals and character. To pursue the subject of this law.--I was
written to in 1785 (being then in Paris) by Directors appointed to
superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as
to a plan, and to add to it one of a Prison. Thinking it a favorable
opportunity of introducing into the state an example of architecture, in
the classic style of antiquity, and the _Maison Quarree_ of Nismes,
an ancient Roman temple, being considered as the most perfect model
existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied to M.
Clerissault, who had published drawings of the antiquities of Nismes, to
have me a model of the building made in stucco, only changing the order
from Corinthian to Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian
capitals. I yielded, with reluctance, to the taste of Clerissault,
in his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble
capital of antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul
Gouffier had carried with him to Constantinople, and employed, while
Ambassador there, in making those beautiful models of the remains
of Grecian architecture, which are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the
exterior to our use, I drew a plan for the interior, with the apartments
necessary for legislative, executive, and judiciary purposes; and
accommodated in their size and distribution to the form and dimensions
of the building. These were forwarded to the Directors, in 1786, and
were carried into execution, with some variations, not for the better,
the most important of