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1822. Carta de Rodrigo da Fonseca Magalhães para José da Silva Carvalho, Ministro da Justiça.

Author(s)	Rodrigo da Fonseca Magalhães
Addressee(s)	José da Silva Carvalho
In English	Letter from Rodrigo da Fonseca Magalhães, a former secretary of the governor of Pernambuco, to José da Silva Carvalho, the secretary of justice. The author gives a detailed account of his mission as a spy. He had been previously recruited by the addressee to help to stop the conspiracy against the liberal cabinet. In 1822, in the aftermath of the liberal revolution in Portugal, the suspects of a counter-revolutionary coup were prosecuted by the Royal justice. The official version of the coup was described in the 'Diário do Governo' (Cabinet Journal) as the act of «evil anarchists and ambitious conspirators who wanted no less than barbarically cover with blood our happy Regeneration, put our Homeland in mourning, depose the King and take down the House of Deputies ('Cortes')». Five suspects were immediately arrested: Francisco de Alpoim e Meneses, a businessman, Januário da Costa Neves, a knight of the Order of Christ, officer of the Military Ministry of the Army, Manuel Ferreira, a footman, and João Rodrigues da Costa Simões, an apprentice printer. If there is no translation for the letter itself, you may copy the text (while using the view 'Standardization') and paste it to an automatic translator of your choice.

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[1]	~~Illmo e Exmo Snr~~ ~~Ás 9 da noute do dia de hontem estive~~
[2]	com o Neves e Alpoim em casa do primeiro.
[3]	Li uma terrivel proclamação que se impri
[4]	mirá com o Dialogo das Estatuas: metter se
[5]	ha no prelo (segundo disse Neves) com o mes
[6]	mo Dialogo 3ª fra proxima futura á
[7]	noute.
[8]	~~Disse Alpoim que a opinião publica esta~~
[9]	va mais que nunca opposta áo Governo,
[10]	e áo Congresso; que o Ministerio ja não
[11]	sabia de si; nem que providencias dar;
[12]	que era certo estar o Marechal Augereau
[13]	com cincoenta mil homens para entrar
[14]	em Hespanha; que pela Provincia do
[15]	Minho entrão columnas de Hespanhoes;
[16]	que tudo vai a mudar de face. De
[17]	pois de ouvir tão estranhas noticias, au
[18]	senteime.
[19]	~~Rogo a V Excia a Graça de pôr esta par~~
[20]	ticipação na Presença de S Mage se
[21]	assim o julgar necessario
[22]	Ds Gde a V Excia ~~Lisboa 25 de Maio de~~
[23]	1822
[24]	~~Illmo e Exmo Snr José da Silva Carvalho~~
[25]	Rodrigo da Fonseca Magalhães