1817. Cópia de carta de Francisco Quintino da Cruz, mestre de iate, para António Ribeiro Pessoa, negociante.

Copy of a request letter from Francisco Quintino da Cruz, a yacht master, to António Ribeiro Pessoa, a trader.

The author asks the addressee, his master, to understand his errors and all the reasons that assisted him. The addressee should forgive him in the name of his daughters and late wife. He is so desperate that, as he confesses, he has felt the temptation of throwing himself into the sea.

António Ribeiro Pessoa was a trader who owned a yacht. His yacht master, Francisco Quintino da Cruz, should go to Almería and back for cargo trading, but he went to Gibraltar instead, sold the cargo and hid himself. António Ribeiro Pessoa succeeded in having him arrested when he came back to Lisbon. In the instructions letter that António Ribeiro Pessoa initially gave to Francisco Quintino da Cruz along with the yacht, there was a list of the latter´s obligations. He was to leave with rice, olive oil and wood and it must bring back esparto grass, sweet fennel, cumin, Alicante raisins and brandy.