Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 2
1826-12-15
A large dinner at home of Members of Congress. Principally men of our side. Col. Mercer of Virginia, a wavering and weak man, sat next to me.2 He had very little to say. The dinner was on the whole neither agreeable nor dull.
From D/CFA/5. CFA spent the day working on the Executive Record, reading Spenser, walking, and taking a ride with his mother (D/CFA/1).
The Adams side was the National Republican; Congressman Mercer became a Democrat. The words "and weak" in this sentence were underlined and enclosed in parentheses at a later (perhaps not much later) reading by CFA, who at the same time wrote in the margin: “No.”