[1630-1639]. Cópia de carta de Luís de Melo, advogado da Relação e da Casa da Suplicação de Lisboa, para Álvaro Pires Pacheco, padre.

Copy of private letter from Luís de Melo, lawyer, to Álvaro Pires Pacheco, priest.

The author describes what happened when he was arrested by the Inquisition, lamenting that credit is given to voluntary confessions and asking for help to get rid of penitence in Portugal.

The defendant in this process is Luís de Melo, a 39 years old New-Christian, graduated in law from the University of Coimbra and a lawyer in a Lisbon court. Married to Isabel Loba, with whom he had two children, the defendant was the son of Álvaro Mendes (who lived from his farm) and Inês Fernandes, and and was arrested on May 19, 1637, charged with perjury and breach of the prison that he had been sentenced to before. In the process nº2982 of the Inquisition of Lisbon, the defendant had been considered guilty of Judaism. However, after being convicted he received a general pardon and was reconciled, thus getting rid of his sentence. The second process about him was due to the fact that, after that general pardon, he again declared that he believed in the law of Moses and that it was good, and practiced all Jewish rituals, declaring himself a Jew and claiming to have feigned repentance because he had been coerced by the Inquisition. Furthermore, the defendant infringed the prison who had been sentenced to him, leaving the city and going to Seville. The letters written by him were sent by Simon Peres (owner of the house in Seville where the defendant lived) and then delivered by Álvaro Pires Pacheco (a religious man in the Company of Jesus) to Martim Afonso Ferreira (lawyer), so that he would take them to table of the Inquisition. In an auto-da-fe on October 11, 1637, the defendant was sentenced to be publicly whipped, prison and to row in the galleys for ten years, among other punishments.