Mercer seems to have been driving himself to the limit, not to achieve success as in the prior decades, but rather to hold secure what he already had. The specter of debt now hung over him, as it did over nearly every planter, under the increasing burdens of the French and Indian War. The 17th-century wisdom of William Fitzhugh and Robert Beverley in seeking to lead the colony away from complete dependence upon tobacco was apparent to those who would remember. Marlborough, although still technically a town, was now in reality a tobacco plantation, and Mercer, despite his status as a lawyer, was as irretrievably committed to the success or failure of tobacco as was Fitzhugh 70 years earlier. The hard years were now upon all, and, like his equally hard-pressed debtors, Mercer was suffering from them. FOOTNOTES: [123] _Executive Journals of the Council_, op. cit. (footnote 66), vol. 5, p. 410. [124] Ibid., p. 434. [125] The Balthrop family lived in King George County; Smith's ordinary has not been identified; "Vaulx's" probably refers to the home of Robert Vaulx of Pope's Creek, Westmoreland County. Vaulx was father-in-law of Lawrence Washington and died in 1755. [126] Philip Ludwell Lee, proprietor of "Stratford," Westmoreland County, 1751-1775, grandfather of General Robert E. Lee. "Old Stratford and the Lees who Lived There," _Magazine of the Society of Lees of Virginia_ (Richmond, May 1925), vol. 3, no. 1, p. 15. [127] Peter Hedgman was another Stafford County leader. He was burgess from 1742 to 1755. "Members of the House of Burgesses," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1901), vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 249. [128] George Fisher visited Chiswell's ordinary: "On Monday May the 12th 1755, at Day Break, about half an hour after Four in the morning, I left Williamsburg to proceed to Philadelphia.... About Eight o'clock, by a slow Pace, I arrived at Chiswell's Ordinary. Two Planters in the Room, I went into, were at Cards (all Fours) but on my arrival, returned into an inner Room." "Narrative of George Fisher," _WMQ_ [1] (Richmond, 1909), vol. 17, pp. 164-165. LIFE AT MARLBOROUGH DURING THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS On March 11, 1755, after nearly 30 years of uncertainty about his titles to Marlborough, Mercer at last was granted the entire 52-acre town in a release from the feoffees, Peter Daniel and Gerard Fowke. This was made with the provision that he should be "Eased from making improvements on the other twenty-six Lots (those not built upon), to prevent their forfeiture and the County will be wholly reimbursed, which it is not probable it ever will be otherwise as only one Lot has been taken up in forty-seven years last past and there is not one House in the said town which has not been built by the said Mercer."[129]