Page:Hector Macpherson - Herschel (1919).djvu/16

10 campaign which culminated in the disastrous battle of Hastenbeck, 26th July, 1757. During the campaign they were many times forced to encamp in the wet furrows of ploughed fields. At Hastenbeck, the band was almost within reach of gunshot. Accordingly, Isaac Herschel advised his son to consider his own safety. Young Herschel thereupon, in his own words, "left the engagement and took the road to Hanover, but when I arrived there, I found that having no passport I was in danger of being pressed for a soldier". At that time Herschel was not technically a soldier, but a member of the band. Accordingly, he returned to the regiment, only to find that "nobody had time to look after the musicians—they did not seem to be wanted". The forced marches in the hot weather told on the lad's health, and his father advised him to leave the service." In September, my father's opinion was, that as on account of my youth I had not been sworn in when I was admitted to the Guards, I might leave the military service. Indeed, he had no doubt but that he could obtain my dismission, and this he after some time actually procured (in 1762) from General Spörcken, who succeeded General Sommerfeld."

The formal discharge paper is in existence and was printed for the first time in the "Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel," published in 1912. Dr. Dreyer, in his introductory sketch of Herschel's life, gives it as his opinion that "the existence of this formal discharge paper puts an end to the legend, too long and too readily believed, that he deserted from the army and that he received a formal pardon for this offence from George III on the occasion of his first audience in 1782". Whether Herschel was technically a deserter or not, it is very difficult to determine. In some notes furnished in later years to the editor of a Göttingen scientific periodical, Herschel said: "In my fifteenth year, I enlisted in military service, only remaining in the army, however,