In spite of these hostilities, and although the existence of unsettled questions had caused a very uneasy feeling between them, France and England were as yet nominally at peace. And Newcastle, wholly unfit to conduct a great war, and eager to temporize as long as possible, seems to have tried to confine the war to matters affecting the prosperity of the American colonies. Thus Admiral Boscawen was sent out with orders to watch the French fleet, and attack it if it appeared bound for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The consequence was an engagement, in which the French lost two ships. The rest of the fleet, to the disappointment of the English people, reached its destination. So again, Hawke's fleet in the Channel received strange and contradictory orders. One party in the Council wished to act openly and declare war. Newcastle suggested that no orders should be given to Hawke, but that he should be sent out to cruise, and that he should be ordered not to attack the French fleet unless he thought it worth while. Finally, instructions were given him to attack line of battle ships, but nothing smaller, and to spare trading vessels. He had not been gone a week when orders reached him to destroy everything large and small between Cape Ortegal and Cape Clear. The consequence was a large capture of prizes, and a not unfair outcry from France and the rest of Europe against the strange conduct of the English in seizing vessels without a declaration of war. [Sidenote: George's anxiety for Hanover.] [Sidenote: He makes subsidiary treaties against Prussia. 1755.]