nton, now at the zenith of his power,
who resented its establishment because it must become a competitor of
the Manhattan, an institution that furnished him fat dividends and
large influence. Clinton had undoubtedly acquired a reputation for
love of gain as well as of power, but he had never been charged, like
John Taylor, with avarice. He spent with a lavish hand, he loaned
liberally to friends, and he borrowed as if the day of payment was
never to come; yet he had no disposition to help opponents of a bank
that must cripple his control and diminish his profits. In this
contest, too, he had the active support of Ambrose Spencer, who fought
the proposed charter in the double capacity of a stockholder in the
Manhattan and the State, and a member of the Council of Revision.
Three banks, with five millions of capital and authority to issue
notes and create debts for fifteen millions more, he argued, were
enough for one city. He had something to say also about "an alarming
decrease of specie," and "an influx of bills of credit," which
"tended to further banish the precious metals from circulation."[160]

[Footnote 160: Alfred B. Street, _New York Council of Revision_, p.
427.]

Governor Lewis would have been wiser had he joined Clinton and Spencer
in their opposition. But Lewis would not play second fiddle in any
game with Clinton, and so when he discovered that Clinton opposed the
bank, he yielded party principle to personal prejudice and favoured
it. With this powerful recruit the managers still lacked a majority,
and, to influence others, Ebenezer Purdy, a Republican senator,
employed his gifts in offering his legislative associates large
rewards and rich benefits. As a statesman, Purdy seems to have been
without any guiding principle, or any principle at all. He toiled and
pushed and climbed, until he had landed in the Senate; then he pulled
and bargained and promised until he became a member of the Council of
Appointment, and, later, chairman of the legislative caucus that
nominated Chancellor Lansing for governor; but not until the
Merchants' Bank wanted a charter did Purdy find an opportunity to
develop those aldermanic qualifications which distinguish him in
history. He was getting on very well until he had the misfortune to
confide his secret to Stephen Thorn, a senator from the eastern
district, and Obadiah German, the well-known assemblyman from
Chenango, whose views were not as liberal as Erastus Root's. "No o