1823. Carta Luís Caetano Leirós de Andrade e Castro, sob o pseudónimo de António Chuço, para [D. Leonor de Almeida Lorena e Lencastre, a Marquesa de Alorna].

Extortion letter from Luís Caetano Leirós de Andrade e Castro, under the alias of António Chuço, to Fernando António de Almeida, a land owner.

The authors threatens the addressee with violence unless she pays a sum of money to a prisoner in Lisbon. The addressee was no less than the Marquise of Alorna, a famous literary author.

In the first quarter of the 19th century, extortion letters became a very typical practice. Authors threatened rich addressees with all sorts of ruinous events in the case they didn't hand in a certain amount of money. The frequentness of this practice was possible also because of the political and social turmoil associated with these first years of Liberalism.