1796. Carta de Cipriano Ribeiro Freire, ministro plenipotenciário, para Dom João de Almeida de Melo e Castro, diplomata.

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

The author tells how ill he has been and how slowly he is recovering. He sends some volumes of the «Remembrancer» periodical and finishes the letter with a reference to the difficult ratification of the Anglo-American treaty of commerce.

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).