To George Washington from Jacob Wray, 24 March 1790
From Jacob Wray
Virginia Port Hampton
May it please your ExcellencyMarch 24th 1790
As I, find myself groing very short in Memory & of coarse my small abillities going in the same line & find publick business if ever so profitable so great a burthen to my mind without I could controll the business according to Law & Instructions which in my Opinion makes some nice reflections.
Therefore if you will please to relieve me of a great Burthen altho of so little business to the Nation I, shall rest happy in keeping up till a successor comes to hand which is my real wishes to Resign.1 I am with all Duty your most Obedt Sert
Jacob Wray Collr
Port Hampton
ALS, DNA: RG 59, Resignations and Declinations, Letters of Resignation and Declination of Federal Office.
1. Jacob Wray was appointed collector of customs at Hampton, Va., in August 1789. He had been recommended for a federal post by Samuel Griffin, John Page and Miles King. See Conversation with Samuel Griffin, 9 July 1789, Page to GW, 14 July 1789, and King to GW, 19 July 1789. Wray was succeeded in the collectorship at Hampton in April 1790 by George Wray, Jr. ( 2:68; GW to the U.S. Senate, 28 April 1790).