The Thirty-First Canto is all about a series of missives sent by Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and other.

As per usual, Pound focuses on logistics and financial exchanges, including several references to slaves and slavery, though I can’t quite figure out if he is trying to make a particular statement with them.

Knowing as we do, Pound’s obsessions, I wonder whether he is attempting to chronicle the moment when the United States became entangled in finance and interest payments (would he call any such things usury, I wonder?).