1825. Carta de José de Faria Machado, sargento, assinada sob o pseudónimo de António Chuço, para Manuel Vilaças, padre.

Extortion letter, signed with the alias Antonio Chuço (Antonio, the Pike), sent to Manuel Vilaças.

The author threatens the recipient with death if the latter doesn't deliver 20 coins to liberate a man from the Limoeiro jail.

In the first quarter of the 19th century, extorsion letters became a very typical practice in the Limoeiro jail, near Lisbon. Prisoners, pretending to be highwaymen, contacted people outside jail, threatening them 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.