Samuel Berrian (d. 1819), attorney, operated a circulating library in New York City, 1803–08. He received an A.B. degree from Columbia College (later University) in 1809. In 1812 Berrian was admitted to practice law in the New York State Supreme Court. He was a member of New York City’s Tammany Society or Columbian Order and the Hibernian Provident Society (Berrian, A Catalogue, of Samuel Berrian’s Increasing and Circulating Library, No. [20] Chatham-Street [New York, 1803; bracketed number inserted by hand]; Longworth’s New York Directory [1804]: 84; [1808]: 76; Milton Halsey Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni 1754–1857 [1936], 125; New York Public Advertiser, 3 July 1811; New York Mercantile Advertiser, 2 Nov. 1812; New York National Advocate, 4 July 1815, 4 Apr. 1817; New-York Evening Post, 13 Nov. 1819).

The oration that Berrian sent TJ, one of at least three such efforts that he published, was An Oration, delivered before the Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, Hibernian Provident, Columbian, and Shipwright’s Societies, in the City of New-York, on the Fourth Day of July, 1815 (New York, 1815; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 13 [no. 826]; TJ’s copy at ViU). France was the friendly nation and Napoleon the ruler.