He was ably supported by his second in command, De Levis, who lived to be a duke and a marshal of France, and a third good officer, Bourlamaque, came out at the same time. Montcalm's own aide de camp was De Bougainville, more famed in after years on sea than land. His name stands first in the list of French navigators; he was the rival and contemporary of Captain Cook. Good leaders France sent out to America in the spring of 1756, but she sent few troops with them. The campaign on the continent absorbed her strength, and New France was lost in consequence. [Sidenote: _The English leaders. Webb, Abercromby, and Loudoun._] [Sidenote: _Recall of Shirley._] Montcalm and his officers arrived in May; in June and July three English commanders appeared on the scene--Colonel Daniel Webb, General Abercromby, and Lord Loudoun. Of these three, Webb in a subordinate command and Loudoun as Commander-in-Chief were failures. Abercromby, possibly the best of the three, was not a success; he was in Wolfe's opinion 'a heavy man.'[11] The trio were a type of the soldiers that the English Government chose, while England, to quote the Prussian King Frederick's words, was in labour, and before she brought forth a man. While sending out inadequate officers from home, the Government recalled William Shirley, who, whatever his faults may have been, embodied more than any one man in America {261} enterprising and heart-whole resistance to the national foe. He left on the arrival of Loudoun, having to the last used all his influence to prepare manfully for the coming campaign. Thus the summer of 1756 found the two sides ill matched in point of commanders; if the chances of war were at all even, the forces led by Montcalm could not fail to outwit and surprise the troops which were guided by the slow-moving Scotch laird, the Earl of Loudoun.[12] [Footnote 11: Wright's _Life of Wolfe_, p. 451.] [Footnote 12: John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, had served in the Highland campaign of 1745. In America he appears to have shown himself wanting in quickness, in tact, and in strategical ability. Franklin accused him of indecision. The colonial saying about him was that he was like the sign of St. George over an inn, always on horseback but never moving on. There is a pleasant notice of him in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, when Boswell and Johnson dined at his house on the tour to the Hebrides.] [Sidenote: _Robert Rogers._]