That's correct Elrian, but after making Orcs, Trolls, Dragons and all other nasty stuff in the world, Melkor was weaker in effective personal power than Sauron. He had had to let so much of himself pass into his corruptions that without their help, he was actually relatively weak. He was, for example, susceptible to the spells of a half-maia - not exactly what I would expect from the most powerful of all the Ainur.
Sauron, on the other hand, didn't have to expend any of his personal power to corrupt the matter of Arda - Melkor had done it for him, and all he had to do was to 'tap' this power.
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