W. Caton, after some stay in Holland, returned again to England. I think it was in this year that William Ames went into Germany, where being come into the Palatinate, he went to Heidelburgh, and came to the court of the prince Elector, Charles Lodowick, who treated him kindly, even at his own table, and seemed not to take offence at Ames’s hat, which he kept on, though the lords and others that were in the company, stood bareheaded. The baron of Helmont, who also was at that court, was wont to tell afterwards, that Ames walking once with his hat on, next to the prince in his garden, the courtiers asked the prince, whether they should question Ames for this incivility; but the prince said, ‘No, for I did expect that.’ At another time the prince made his chaplain and Ames both dine with him, on purpose, as it seems, that Ames, whom he knew to be a bold man, might find occasion to reprove his chaplain; for at meat he suffered his jester to come, who playing his tricks, the chaplain was silent; but Ames, who loved gravity, and was averse to jesting, took occasion from thence to reprove such vain actions; but chiefly he aimed at the chaplain, whom, because of his silence at the lewd behaviour of the jester, he called a dumb dog; which seemed to please the prince. Now whilst William Ames was in the Palatinate, he got acquaintance with the Baptists at Krieshiem, a town not far from Worms; and among those people he found such entrance, that some families receiving the doctrine he preached, bore a public testimony for it there, and so continued till the settlement of Pennsylvania in America, when they unanimously went thither, not as it seemed without a singular direction of Providence; for not long after, a war ensued in Germany, where the Palatinate was altogether laid waste by the French, and thousands of people were bereft of their possessions, and reduced to poverty. But to return to Ames, when some in the Palatinate began to give an ear to his preaching, a fine was settled upon those that gave him entertainment: but the prince Elector, being informed hereof, took off that fine; and though those of the consistory did send for Ames, the prince generously ordered them not to meddle with him. The prince’s sister also behaved herself very kindly towards him, and received his exhortations favourably. A year after Ames came again into the Palatinate, with John Higgins, and visiting the prince Elector, he understood from the captain of the prince’s guard, that the prince was glad of Ames’s return thither. Awhile after Higgins delivered to the prince Elector a book of G. Fox, with a letter of Ames to the said prince, who was so well pleased with it, that he bade Higgins to thank Ames on his behalf, saying also that he took the coming of Ames and Higgins to him and his family very kindly, and really believed that what they spoke was in love to their souls.