1828. Carta Luís Caetano Leirós de Andrade e Castro, sob o pseudónimo de Anacleto Vila Real, para João Maria Botão.

Extortion letter from Luís Caetano Leirós de Andrade e Castro, under the alias of Anacleto Vila Real, to João Maria Botão.

The author promises to burn everything belonging to the addressee unless he sends a sum of money to a prisoner in Lisbon.

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.