Chapter 21 of the Laws of 1797, which created the office of State

Comptroller, provided, among other things, that "all matters and things theretofore required to be done by the Auditor of the State should be done by the Comptroller, and that the salary and wages of all legislative, executive, judicial and ministerial officers of the government of this State, and all moneys directed by law to be paid to any other person, should be paid by the Treasurer on the warrant of the Comptroller;" that the Comptroller should keep an account between the State and the Treasurer; that he might lend out moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, and that when money was directed to be paid, and not sufficient money in the treasury to satisfy the same, he might "in the name, and on behalf of the People of this State, borrow a sum sufficient for that purpose of a bank of New York, or bank of Albany."

Thus the important powers which have distinguished the Comptroller's office--the power of audit; to draw warrants for all payments from the treasury; to keep its books of financial transactions; to invest its funds, and to borrow money--were embodied in the first act. The powers thus granted infringed so largely upon the ordinary rights and duties of a Treasurer, and so largely upon those which had been theretofore exercised by the Treasurer of this State, that it is not strange the then Treasurer, Gerardus Bancker, who had held the office from April 1, 1778, resigned in disgust. His feeling was, as Lossing has stated in his "Empire State," that the Comptroller was made "the highest financial officer of the State, and the Treasurer merely a clerk to him."

The early history of the office is an illustration of the cautious and doubtful temper of the Legislatures of the time--so unlike those of the present day. It is a well-known fact that while the Legislature of the State met for the first time at Albany, in the same year, 1797, in which the office of Comptroller was created, it was not then made a permanent location for the Capitol; and that city was maintained for upwards of twenty years as the Capitol simply by the adjournment of the Legislature at the end of each session to meet again at the city of Albany. The original act creating the Comptroller's office provided that it should continue in force for a period of three years. On the 28th day of February, 1800, eleven days after the office had expired by limitation,