By the way, my interest in cockfighting goes beyond my mere interest in the sport of gentlemen and kings. There is an academic angle too.

I have been researching the establishment of US law in its colonial possessions and the meaning of this expanded jurisdiction, and one of the issues I have been studying is the interest in regulating cockfighting in colonial posessions. It is interesting also in a comparative sense to consider the ways that northern reformers sought to limit or outlaw cockfighting in the Southern states, which is something that I need to study more.

As I was saying, I recently spent some time in the National Archives, partly working on this issue. Here is a picture of the kind of cables I am looking at, this one in its original secret code:




and here is a translation of it: