On November 8 he returned to Ur. Roy's. On the 

 10th he added a characteristically sparse note to his 

 chronicle, "Married to Ann Roy." 



The period for mourning poor Catherine was short 

 indeed. But the mansion at Marlborough needed a 

 mistress, and Mercer's children, a mother. A new 

 chapter was about to open as the decade closed. 

 From the meticulous records that Mercer kept, it has 

 been possible to see Mercer as a dynamic cosmopolite, 

 accomplishing an incredible amount in a few short 

 years. His constant physical movement from place to 

 place, his reading of the law and of even a fraction of 

 his hundreds of books in science, literature, and the 



arts, his managing of four plantations, attending two 

 monthly court sessions a year at Williamsburg, looking 

 after the legal affairs of hundreds of clients, concern- 

 ing himself with the design and construction of a 

 remarkable house and selecting the furnishings for 

 it — all this illustrates a personality of euormous 

 capacity. 



Marlborough was now a full-fledged plantation. 

 Although the legacy of an earlier age still nagged at 

 Mercer and prevented him from holding title to much 

 of the old town, he had, nevertheless, transformed it, 

 gracing it with the outspread grandeur of a Palladian 

 great house. 



