Another lengthy Canto.

This one is about the disputes leading up to the American Revolution, namely the Stamp Act.

He spends a lot of time complaining about taxes and regulations (keeping in mind that “strict regulations” in the eighteenth century allowed for things like slavery).

A reminder that though Pound may be most appreciated these days by liberal lovers of literature, he was, by contemporary standards, very conservative. Sort of a Grover Norquist/Tea Party Republican.

One amusing thing, at least for the modern reader, is Pound’s use of the word “bro” in the very first line of the Canto:

To John’s bro, a sheriff, we lay a kind word in passing

He also inserts himself into the action in an amusing fashion:

Upon which he offered me a retaining fee of one guinea
which I accepted
                   (Re which things was Hutchinson undoubtedly scro-
                                                                 fulous ego scriptor cantilenae
                                                                                                          (Ez. P)