In the intervals of warring upon Clinton, Tammany was adroitly seizing every post of vantage in the city. The Burr men ruled its councils and directed the policy and nominations of the Republican, or, as it was getting to be more generally known, the Democratic-Republican party. Three men, in particular, were foremost as leaders--George Buckmaster, a boat builder; Roger Strong and Benjamin Prince, a druggist and physician. Teunis Wortman, one of the energetic leaders in 1807-10, was now not quite so conspicuous. What the Wigwam lacked to make its rule in the city complete was a majority in the Common Council. The committees of the Council not only had the exclusive power of expenditures, but they invariably refused an acceptable accounting.[4] The Federalists, though vanishing as a party owing to their attitude in the recent war, still managed, through local dissensions among the Republicans, to retain control of the Common Council. The Federalists, therefore, held the key to the purse. It had always been customary for the Mayor to appoint the Common Council committees from the party which happened to be dominant. Established forms meant nothing to Mayor Radcliff and to Buckmaster[5] and other Tammany Aldermen, who late in December, 1815, decided to turn out the Federalist chairmen of committees and put Tammany men in their places. Radcliff imprudently printed a handbill of officers he intended appointing, copies of which he sent to his partizans. A copy fell into a Federalist’s hands. At the next meeting, before the Mayor could get a chance to act, the Federalist majority altered the rules so as to vest in future the appointment of all committees in a majority of the board. The Sachems were so enraged at Radcliff’s bungling that they declared they would have him removed from office. About a year afterward they carried out their threat. In 1816 Tammany elected not only its Congress and Assembly ticket, but a Common Council, by over 1000 majority out of 9000 votes. This victory was the result of the wily policy of further disrupting the Federalist party by nominating its most popular men. Walter Bowne, a late Federalist, an enemy of Clinton and a man of standing in the community, was one of those nominated by Tammany Hall for State Senator, and the support of the wealthy was solicited by the selection of men of their own class, such as Col. Rutgers, said to be the richest man in the State.