ABSTRACT
The British army had not reinforced the Austrians in Italy, created a diversion in France by the capture of Belle Isle or destroyed the Spanish fleet at Ferrol and Cadiz. In reply to Grenville's terms, the French told the British, on 16 September, to choose between negotiations for a general peace, to follow a naval armistice on the French terms, and an armistice on the British terms, to be followed by a separate Anglo-French peace. Prompted by Dundas, the British began in 1800 to ask whether Russian expansion in the Middle East, matched with British expansion in India, would lead to a rivalry likely to replace Britain's traditional rivalry with France. The British, who saw the naval armistice as the prelude to negotiations for a general peace accompanied by an extension of the armistice of Alessandria, refused to make the choice.
