The decline of the power of the Bank was now rapid. In the state and congressional elections of 1834 the President of the United States was everywhere sustained, even the Whigs quietly taking the same ground. The friendship of the Bank was now enough to damn any party; Biddle realized the danger of his situation, and on election day sent his family out of town and barricaded his house and office. The legislatures of Pennsylvania and New York, where his flag had flown triumphantly for years, denounced him and planned to issue bonds for the relief of the people. The autumn saw a complete reversal of policy on the part of the Bank, and business at once resumed its normal course. Money became easy, prices rose to the former level, and the wheels of industry began to turn. Nothing seemed more conclusively shown than that most of the trouble had been due to the demand on the part of a few men for a continuation of financial privileges. Jackson's first great victory was won, 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.