1715. Carta de Manuel Gomes Rodrigues, cozinheiro, para a sua cunhada, Teresa.

Family letter from Manuel Gomes Rodrigues, cook, to his sister-in-law, Teresa.

The author asks for news about his wife. He says that he thinks she is dead since, for the past six years, she has not been responding to his letters.

The defendant in this process is Manuel Gomes Rodrigues, who sometimes was known by Manuel Gomes and others by Manuel Rodrigues, among other names. He was accused of bigamy, for having married Antónia Josefa while his first wife, Maria Gomes, was still alive. He was able to marry this second time thanks to a falsified document saying he was single. When it was publicly known that is first wife was still alive, he tried to kill her, poisoning the water that she was supposed to drink and, failing this, beating her and trying to drown her. She cried for help, which called the attention of the neighbours. He was later condemned to be publicly flogged and to row for five years in the galleys, among other punishments.