The Manhattan Bank scandals were made public in February, 1840. This was the bank whose charter Aaron Burr had so ingeniously secured in 1799. It had been a Tammany institution from the beginning, and Tammany politicians had ruled its policies. It was now generally regarded as the leading financial institution in the city, rivaled only by the Bank of America. It carried $600,000 of Government funds on deposit, and, of course, a large city and State fund. It was now shown that for years it had loaned large sums to Tammany leaders and to family connections of its directors and officials, and that it had spent other large sums for political purposes. The total of its worthless loans and political expenditures reached the enormous sum of $1,344,266.99. Cashier Campbell P. White, tried on the technical charge of stealing several of the bank’s books, was freed through the disagreement of the jury,[18] but on a second trial, charged with assaulting Jonathan Thompson, a Tammany director of the bank who had criticized his management, he was fined $250 and imprisoned for fifteen days.[19] In the midst of the excitement Colin G. Newcomb, the teller, disappeared with $50,000. That the bank weathered the storm well-nigh reaches the dimensions of a miracle. Paulding, twice a Tammany Mayor; Bowne, another Tammany ex-Mayor; and Robert H. Morris, at that time Recorder, appeared as the defendant’s witnesses in the first trial. White was an influential Wigwam chief, and in 1832 had been elected to Congress on the Tammany ticket. FOOTNOTES [1] The _New Yorker_, January 20, 1838. [2] _Ibid._, February 17, 1838. James Parton, in his biography of Horace Greeley, attributes the latter’s conversion and life-long devotion to Socialist principles in large part to the frightful sufferings which he witnessed in New York City, in the Winter of 1838. [3] Bloodgood was the son of Abraham Bloodgood, one of the earliest Tammany politicians. The son likewise achieved considerable influence in the organization. He was for a long time a Police Justice. He will be met with again toward the end of this chapter. [4] Confession of Hart Marks, one of the leaders, before Justice Lowndes in the lower Police Court, November 6, 1838, and of Jonathan D. Stevenson and others in the Recorder’s Court, October 20, 1840. [5] _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1844-45, XI, No. 51.