To Thomas Jefferson from Samuel Bryan, 1 October 1807

General Muhlenberg having vacated the Office of Collector of this Port by his death, I respectfully solicit to be appointed his successor to that Office.

The President has been already apprised of my pretensions to that distinguished mark of confidence and of reward for my own and my Fathers services and sacrifices for the welfare of the Community—

The enlightened and anxious solicitude which the President has ever manifested for the promotion and permanency of the genuine principles of representative Government encourages me to hope that my official and political rectitude & energy amidst surrounding seductions, apostacies and tempests of Parties and consequent privations, sufferings and eventual deprivation of the means of subsisting myself and Family will be duly appreciated and the present occasion embraced to give me a comfortable retreat in the decline of life.

Notwithstanding the personal consequences which an inflexible and energetical line of public conduct predicated on maxims of moral and political rectitude which in the political life of my Father were evident to all the intelligent public actors of his time, I have invariably pursued the same maxims of conduct and although rich in the consciousness of the services I have rendered the Community and the esteem of the patriotic and just, I am poor in the pecuniary means of comfort.

I therefore respectfully confide that if I should be deemed qualified and deserving of the appointment of Collector my circumstances as to property will induce the President to give me a preference to those gentlemen who are already in possession of a competency—

Referring the subject to the magnanimity and liberality of the President I have the honor to be

With high consideration your most obedt. servt.