At seventeen pages, this is a doozy.

It’s about the American Revolutionary War. Sort of.

This being Pound, it’s also about finance. But less banking than international trade. And international relations. But mainly as they relate to trade.

And mainly trade by sea.

Pound engages in one of his strategies of listmaking, as of lists that might be compiled by ‘characters’ in his Cantos, often written in a sort of short hand.

Benjamin Franklin appears prominently, but I think this has more to do with the prominence of France (Franklin having been ambassador to France on behalf of the Continental Congress) than of a particular focus on Franklin.

While writing about France, he even manages to toss in some ancient history:

Laws of the Visigoths and Justinian still in use in Galicia

(Yes, I know that Galicia is in Spain, but the references to Spain are made, so to speak, by ‘characters’ in France).