[1658]. Carta de [Filipa Nunes de Tovar, mulher de mercador], para o genro, [Policarpo de Oliveira, mercador].

Family letter from [Filipa Nunes de Tovar, wife of a merchant], to her son in law, [Policarpo de Oliveira, merchant].

The author provides guidance on how to proceed in interrogations and transmits a variety of information, namely saying who she has denounced, that her sister Ana Henriques is incarcerated, and also some other news at the request of her cellmate, whose husband was in the same prison as the recipient.

Antónia Gonçalves, who was a midwife in the prisons of the Inquisition of Coimbra, was accused of having been a mediator for a series of messages that were found in her possession. According to the report of the guards, she "had gotten very shocked when the mentioned socks and papers had been found on her, getting mortified because of this." The set of letters and notes included in the process had been exchanged between two prisons. Such a finding was due to the alert made by a prisoner, João Pires. In view of the mayor of the prison, that inmate pretended to be giving a jar of dirty water, but actually he gave her "a folded paper, waving his eyes, as if he was making some warning." Shortly after, Antónia Gonçalves was preparing to launch a folk remedy to Francisco de Paz, cellmate of that prisoner, and was then caught by surprise by the guards, who found several folded and bound papers in the pockets of her skirt. Among those involved in these illegal communications were Filipa Nunes de Tovar, who was in prison together with Maria Gonçalves de Almeida, Maria's husband, Francisco de Paz, and also Policarpo de Oliveira, future son-in-law of Filipa Nunes de Tovar and who was in the same prison as Francisco de Paz. Filipa and Policarpo used the midwife to exchange their own messages, and also acted as readers and scribes at the request of Francisco de Paz (who had been bled) and Maria Gonçalves de Almeida. In the hearing on 24 September 1658, João Pires asked to be heard by the inquisitors, in order to deliver this writing (PSCR1463), which he had found in his cell on September 20, more precisely on the mattress of his bed, hidden in a hole. He stated that this was the note that Policarpo had received about a month earlier, through the same midwife. As stated by Policarpo de Oliveira Gonçalves, Antónia handed him this letter, handwritten by Filipa Nunes and "in which, promiscuously, she wrote on behalf of both women to him, the declarant, and to the mentioned Francisco de Paz."