[1658]. Carta não autógrafa de [Maria Gonçalves de Almeida], para [o marido, Francisco de Paz, mercador].

Family letter, dictated, from [Maria Gonçalves de Almeida], to [her husband, Francisco de Paz, merchant].

The author reports about several facts concerning the imprisonment of relatives, and also concerning the inquiries that had been made.

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.