During 1725 Mercer pressed ahead with his trading enterprises. From his ledger we learn that he sold Richard Ambler of Yorktown 710 pounds of "raw Deerskins" for £35 10s. and bought £200 worth of "sundry goods" from him. Between October 1725 and February 1726 he sold a variety of furnishings and equipment to Richard Johnson, ranging from a "horsewhip" and a "silk Rugg" to "1/2 doz. Shoemaker's knives" and an "Ivory Comb." In return he received two hogsheads of tobacco, "a Gallon of syder Laceground," and raw and dressed deerskins. He maintained a similar long account with Mosley Battaley (Battaille) (Appendix C). From William Rogers of Yorktown[54] he bought £12 3s. 6d. worth of earthenware, presumably for resale. The tobacco which he had accumulated at the falls of the Rappahannock he sold for cash to the Gloucester firm of Whiting & Montague, paying Peter Kemp two pounds "for the extraordinary trouble of y^r coming up so far for it." [Illustration: Figure 3.--PORTRAIT OF JOHN MERCER, artist unknown. About 1750. (_Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas B. Payne._)] His sloop was the principal means by which Mercer conducted his business. Occasionally he rented it for hire, once sharing the proceeds of a load of oystershells with George Mason and one Edgeley, who had sailed the sloop to obtain the shells. Only one item shows that Mercer extended his mercantile activities to slaves: on February 18, 1726, he sold a mulatto woman named Sarah to Philemon Cavanaugh "to be paid in heavy tobacco each hhd to weigh 300 Neat." That Mercer was turning in the direction of a legal career is revealed in his first account of "Domestick Expenses" for the fall of 1725 (Appendix D). We find that he was attending court sessions far and wide: "Cash for Exp^s at Stafford & Spotsylvania," "Cash for Exp^s Urbanna," the same for "Court Ferrage at Keys." He already was reading in the law, and lent "March's Actions of Slander," "Washington's Abridgm^t of y^e Statutes," and "an Exposition of the Law Terms" to Mosley Battaley. FOOTNOTES: [54] William Rogers, who died in 1739, made earthenware and stoneware at Yorktown after 1711. See C. MALCOLM WATKINS and IVOR NOËL HUME, "The 'Poor Potter' of Yorktown" (paper 54 in _Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology_, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 249, by various authors; Washington: Smithsonian Institution), 1967. SETTING UP HOUSEKEEPING Mercer's domestic-expense account is full of evidence that he was preparing to set up housekeeping. He bought "1 China punch bowl," 10s.; "6 glasses," 3s.; "1 box Iron & heaters," 2s. 6d.; "1 p^r fine blankets," 1s. 13d.; "Earthen ware," 10s.; "5 Candlesticks," 17s. 6d.; "1 Bed Cord," 2s.; "3 maple knives & forks," 2s.; "1 yew haft knife & fork & 1 p^r Stilds [steelyards?]," 1s. 10-1/2d.; "1 p^r Salisbury Scissors," 2s. 6d.; and "1 speckled knife & fork," 5d.