[97] Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, Vol. iii, Doc. No. 139. [98] "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of Patents in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' The spoliation of their incessant guerilla upon his defenseless rights have unquestionably amounted to millions." [99] Doc. No. 134, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, Vol. ii. [100] Doc. 129, State Papers, 1819-21, Vol. ii. [101] See Part I, Chapter II. [102] "Allowed itself." The various New York legislatures from the end of the eighteenth century on were hotbeds of corruption. Time after time members were bribed to pass bills granting charters for corporations or other special privileges. (See the numerous specific instances cited in the author's "History of Tammany Hall," and subsequently in this work.) The Legislature of 1827 was notoriously corrupt. [103] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1815:216--Journal of the [New York] Assembly, 1818:261; Journal of the Assembly, 1819. Also "A Statement and Exposition of The Title of John Jacob Astor to the Lands Purchased by him from the surviving children of Roger Morris and Mary, his Wife"; New York, 1827. [104] MSS. Minutes of the (New York City) Common Council, xvi:239-40 and 405. [105] Ibid., xx: 355-356. [106] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xiii: 118 and 185. [107] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xvii: 141-144. See also Annual Report of Controller for 1849, Appendix A. [108] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xviii: 411-414. [109] Doc. No. 33, Documents of the Board of Aldermen, xxii:26. [110] Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 1832-33, iv: 416-418. [111] Controller's Reports for 1831:7. Also Ibid. for 1841:28. CHAPTER IV THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE Astor flourished at that precise time when the traders and landowners, flushed with revenues, reached out for the creation and control of the highly important business of professionally dealing in money, and of dictating, personally and directly, what the supply of the people's money should be.