Maitland Plan (Spanish, Plan de Maitland), refers to a plan created by Scottish Major General Thomas Maitland in 1800. The plan was titled Plan to capture Buenos Aires and Chile, and then emancipate Peru and Quito. Britain was by then at war with Spain and France in the Napoleonic Wars, and was seeking to expand its influence in South America since the loss of the 13 colonies of North America, which had become independent some time before. The plan consisted in: