Jack Frake, now a successful planter, meets newcomer Hugh Kenrick, who has bought a bankrupt plantation as an expression of his independence. They become neighboring planters and friends in Caxton, a town on the York River not far away from Williamsburg, capital of the colony of Virginia. They also become rivals for the hand of Etáin McRae, daughter of a British merchant in town. Jack Frake is respected by the town’s planters and merchants, while Hugh, the scion of British aristocracy, is a mystery to the town’s population and to the lieutenant-governor, Francis Fauquier.