The Skinners demand their reward for capturing Birch but are punished when their robbery and violence are exposed, while Henry Wharton is brought before a military court and faces death for entering the American lines in disguise, even as war continues to interfere with the relationship between Frances and Dunwoodie. Frances seeks the mysterious Harper, who once promised her assistance, and through the help of Harper and Birch Henry escapes to a British warship, while Dunwoodie and Frances are finally united, though Birch’s true allegiance remains hidden from nearly everyone around him. Harper is ultimately revealed as George Washington, who acknowledges Birch as a faithful secret agent of the American cause and offers him payment that the peddler refuses, and decades later Birch dies while again serving his country, with Washington’s written testimony found on his body at last revealing the patriotism of the man who had spent his life being mistaken for a traitor.