on, and he would have been more than
human not to have shown his sense of triumph on the reassembling of
Congress at the end of the momentous year. The Monster had been crushed;
and all his great enemies--Clay, Webster, Adams, and Calhoun--had been
beaten!

Before the first break in the Cabinet Jackson had proved the value of
direct and simple methods in diplomacy. In colonial times and during the
operation of the Jay Treaty the West India trade was most important.
From New England and the Middle States fish, lumber, grain, and other
plantation supplies had been sold to the West India planters in great
quantities. The war of the Revolution curtailed this trade; that of 1812
practically destroyed it, and England thereafter refused to allow
American shipping any rights in these possessions, though Adams and Clay
had urged the reciprocal benefits of such a commerce.

The Jackson Administration succeeded in securing almost immediately the
desired trade arrangements, and the shipping of the Chesapeake Bay, of
Boston and New York, took its wonted course. This victory was hardly
scored before the new President secured from France formal treaty
recognition of the old spoliation claims arising from the depredations
of Napoleon I, which no former administration had been able to collect.
In 1831 the Government of Louis Philippe agreed to pay these damages to
the amount of 25,000,000 francs. But the French legislature delayed to
vote the necessary appropriations. Jackson, assuming that the
obligations would be met promptly, drew upon the French treasury for the
first installment and asked the National Bank to collect the
bills--somewhat over $900,000. The papers were duly presented in Paris,
but they were dishonored. This happened in 1833, when the Bank was in
the midst of the fight on the President. Biddle, without hesitation,
charged the Government $15,000 for the damage to the reputation of the
Bank because the draft had been dishonored in Paris. The Government
refused to pay the claim, and a lawsuit of ten years followed which was
finally decided against the Bank.

It was at this juncture that Jackson, preparing for the removal of the
deposits, sent Secretary Livingston to France to urge the execution of
the treaty of 1831. Livingston failed to convince the French assembly
that it was necessary either to pay the overdue claims or to execute
certain reciprocity clauses of the treaty. In December, 1834, when the
Bank crisis ha