Returning to Germany in 1756, the Hanoverian Guard was employed the following year in the Seven Years’ War. Hanover was invaded by the French, and, conscription being the rule, the musicians were not exempted from service. Under the command of the Duke of Cumberland the Guard suffered a terrible defeat at Hastenbeck. William Herschel spent the night after the battle in a ditch, and decided that soldiering would not be his profession. He deserted, and, with the consent of his parents, he sailed for England. After his arrival at Dover, he wandered through the country in search of musical employment. At length, in 1760, he was appointed to train the band of the Durham Militia, and four years later paid a secret visit to Hanover, where he was welcomed by his father, whose health was now failing, and by his sister Caroline. In the following year he was promoted to the post of organist at Halifax, and in 1766 he removed to Bath as oboist in Linley’s Orchestra. Finally, in 1767, he became organist in the new Octagon Chapel at Bath. Herschel was now twenty-nine years old, and known as a famous musician. As Miss Clerke remarks: “The Octagon Chapel soon became a centre of fashionable attraction, and he soon found himself lifted on the wave of public favour. Pupils of high rank thronged to him, and his lessons often mounted to thirty-five a-week.” In the year of his appointment his father died, aged sixty, after a life of trouble and hardship. His death was a great blow to his daughter Caroline, whom he had educated when her mother was from home. Caroline Herschel was naturally possessed of musical ability, but her mother and elder brother had determined that she should be a housemaid,—a determination which William, who was devotedly attached to his sister, opposed. Finally, in 1772, he visited Hanover, and took his sister to England with him to act as his housekeeper. But for her unwearied devotion it is doubtful whether William Herschel would have become the great astronomer.