Two other treaties were negotiated about the same time; one with Algiers, by which the commerce of the Mediterranean was opened, and the prisoners who had been in bondage for many years released; but for this was paid the large sum of 763,000 dollars, with an annual tribute in stores of 24,000 dollars, a black-mail which was paid likewise by various European nations, to secure them from the piracies of the Dey. The other treaty was with Spain. Spain had long acted towards the United States in an unfriendly manner. She was fearful lest the principles of liberty and independence which they had so successfully asserted should find their way into her contiguous provinces. She had always endeavoured that the western boundary of this so dangerous neighbour should be fixed at 300 miles east of the Mississippi, and she denied to the inhabitants west of the Alleganies access to the ocean by that great river, the mouth of which was in her province of Louisiana. At length, however, when at home she became involved in a war with France, and in America alarmed by the unauthorised preparations making in Kentucky, under the influence of Genet, to invade Louisiana, she intimated her willingness to adjust her differences with the United States by treaty. An envoy extraordinary was therefore immediately despatched to Madrid, and in October a treaty was signed, by which the western boundary of the American republic was fixed according to their own claims, the navigation of the Mississippi made free to both nations, and the American citizens allowed the privilege of landing and depositing cargoes at New Orleans.