[1820-1830]. Carta de Manuela Sanz para su marido Manuel López, capitán de caballería.

Letter from Manuela Sanz to her husband Manuel López, a cavalry captain.

The author writes her husband to give him news about her daily life: in particular, about farming, about her health and about the clothes she is sending him. She also gives him news about the progress of the Royalist War.

The General Police Administration was closely monitoring the activities of foreign citizens residing in Portugal, also controlling their communications, in collaboration with the superintendent of the Posts. This letter is part of this intercepted correspondence from those Spanish military and intellectuals who, fleeing the absolutist Spain, had taken refuge in Portugal and were suspected of harbouring liberal ideas and of plotting to overthrow Fernando VII and establish a constitutional regime.

The events narrated in this letter are part of the royalist war, (guerra realista, 1822-1823), a war fought between the party in favour of Ferdinand VII, the royalists, and the defenders of the Constitution of Cadiz, the constitutionalists, during the period of the Trienio Liberal. It is considered as the precedent of the Carlist Wars. The war ended after the intervention of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, in 1823: a French army mobilized in 1823 by the King of France, to help the Spanish Royalists restore King Ferdinand VII. This is precisely the news given by Manuela Sanz to his husband in this letter.