1. George Bush, customs collector for the District of Delaware and inspector of survey for the ports of Wilmington, New Castle, and Port Penn, died on 2 February. For Broom’s 1789 application for the Delaware customs post, see Broom to GW, 3 April 1789, and the source note to that document; see also Bush to GW, 5 May 1789; and Cranch, Reports of Cases description begins William Cranch. Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States. In February Term, 1815. Vol. 9. Washington City [Washington, D.C.], 1817. description ends , 386.

2. No letters concerning Broom from John Vining or Henry Latimer, both U.S. senators from Delaware, have been found. Vining in fact was recommended for the customs post by Maryland congressman William Vans Murray (see Murray to GW, 8 Feb.).

Broom withdrew his application for the post of customs collector when he wrote GW from Wilmington on 7 Feb.: “I find, upon examining the Laws of the United States, that a Collector of the Customs, cannot be concerned in Commerce; under this impression, I beg leave to relinquish my application for that Office; it not being convenient for me to abandon my Commercial pursuits at this time. As I was not concerned in any trade in the District of Delaware, I did not apprehend, at the time I had the honor of addressing your Excellency on the 4th currt, that I was incapacitated, by being concerned in any other part of the United States” (ALS, DLC:GW). As an owner of a cotton manufactory at Brandywine Creek near Wilmington, Broom probably felt that his commercial connections conflicted with the “Act supplementary to the act, entitled, ‘An act to provide more effectually for the collection of the Duties imposed by law on Goods … imported into the United States …,’” 2 March 1793. That law prohibited customs officials from owning ships, acting as ships’ agents, or being “concerned … in the importation of any goods, wares or merchandise imported into the United States” (1 Stat. description begins Richard Peters, ed. The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845 . . .. 8 vols. Boston, 1845-67. description ends 336–38).

A letter to GW of 20 Feb., signed by Broom and sixteen other Delaware merchants and written from the District of Delaware, reads: “We the undersigned Merchants of the District of Delaware, feeling ourselves interested in the appointment of an officer to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Major Bush our late Collector, do beg leave to recommend to your attention his Brother Do[c]t[or] David Bush as a person in every respect qualified to fill the Office” (LS, DNA: RG 59, State Department).

David Bush (1763–1799) of Wilmington was a brother of George Bush and a physician. His highly regarded work on smallpox led to his election to the Medical Society of Delaware in 1793.

GW eventually appointed Allen McLane as customs collector for the District of Delaware (see GW to McLane, 27 Feb., and n.1 to that document; and GW to the U.S. Senate, 27 Feb., n.2).