1812. Carta de Miguel Arcângelo de Carvalho, vereador, para António Vidal Ferreira Pinto, padre.

News letter from Miguel Arcângelo de Carvalho, a local governor, to António Vidal Ferreira Pinto, a priest.

The author tells the addressee that he intercepted a letter intended to an enemy of them both and that they have rason to celebrate.

The chaplain of Cururupú (Maranhão, Brazil), the Reverend António Vidal Ferreira Pinto, was denounced in 1813 by an enemy of his, the farmer José Gonçalves Castelhano, for a number of crimes. The defendant was accused of living outrageously under the same roof for more than nine years with Faustina Teresa, the wife of the Lieutenant António dos Reis, and with Maria Benedita, a freed slave, as his concubine. He was also accused of being very slow in the administration of the sacraments, and "a refined dealer." He was believed to give shelter to criminal and exiled men, to abuse women, to open other people's letters in order to discover their secrets, and to ask too much money for celebrating baptisms and matrimonies. The plaintiff also complaint about the theft of his ox, which trespassed the lands of the accused and was killed by him.

At the end of a criminal case that lasted six years, the Reverend António Vidal Ferreira Pinto was found not guilty.