Syntactic Trees

Apocryphal letter from Bernardo Gómez Velasco, pretending to be anonymous, to his brother-in-law Manuel de Manzubilaga.

The author explains to Manuel de Manzubilaga he is sending him an attached letter that he must read and then hand it to his brother-in-law. The letter warns him he is in danger.

This litigation against Bernardo Gómez y Velasco was initiated by the count of Aranda following several accusations of theft, murder of a woman, fraud and threats against Aranda. The defendant wrote several anonymous letters pretending to be someone else in order to get money from other people. During the interrogation he admitted to be the author of this letter to exculpate himself, which he pretended he had received. The enquiries were conducted first by the president of the Regional Council of Gipuzkoa and later by the Chancery of Valladolid, following Aranda´s direct orders, who decided how everything had to be done in this proceeding and urged the president to sentence. The defendant was accused of being "a treacherous murderer, a road bandit, a famous thief, a deceiver, a perjurer and a sacrilegious", and he was condemned "to the gallows and then his head and his right hand to be cut from his corps in order to fix them in a high stick. The head will be located next to the cross of Inunciaga on the way from Oñate to Legarpia, and the hand in Bilbao in a public place". Subsequently, the Crime Court commuted the sentence for a prison one and for "public shame", apart from 10 year´s imprisonment in Africa forced to do public works, with dead penalty in case he tried to avoid it. He was acquitted from the chargers of murder. All the letters presented were taken into account as exhibits against him.

This letter was seized in the house of the defendant´s brother-in-law, as it was attested in the same letter by the scrivener: "[...] it was delivered in the house of the defendant´s brother-in-law, who testified so". It was attached to the proceeding documentation for collating it with the threatening letters sent to the count of Aranda".