1795. Carta de Cipriano Ribeiro Freire, ministro plenipotenciário, para Dom João de Almeida de Melo e Castro, diplomata.

News letter from Cipriano RibeiroFreire, plenipotentiary minister in Philadelphia, to Dom João de Almeida de Melo e Castro, the Portuguese plenipotentiary minister in London.

The author gives his condolences to the addressee for the death of his uncle and he congratulates him in advance for the probable inheritance of his political position. He comments on all kinds of topics, from shallow matters to internal and external politics. He reports on the problems raised by the negotiation of a treaty of commerce between the United States and Great Britain. He ends by telling the addressee that he will receive two dogs from the United States, one sent by his wife and the other by the British minister.

João de Almeida de Melo e Castro (1756-1814), the 5th Count of the House of Galveias, was a Portuguese diplomat who, given the pluri-continental nature of the monarchy he represented, had to be very subtle, while dealing with foreign powers, in the management of the resulting Portuguese political ambiguity. He was a plenipotentiary minister in London, the Hague and Rome and an ambassador in Vienna. After 1801 he had different government functions: foreign affairs minister, war minister, navy and overseas minister. He had also several honorary titles. He married Dona Isabel José de Meneses but they had no children, so the 6th Count of Galveias was his brother Francisco (1758-1819).