[1780]. Carta de Francisco Bernardo Quirós, albañil, para Ángela Esteban, mendiga.

Letter from Francisco Bernardo Quirós, a bricklayer, to Ángela Esteban, a beggar.

The author asks Ángela Esteban to ask certain people to release him from prison to fulfil his promise and marry her.

In 1780 Francisco Bernardo Quirós was tried for vagrancy and for being in a de facto relationship. He was married to Teresa Espinosa and worked occasionally as a bricklayer, he had lived in several cities. In 1778 he left Madrid and during his trip he had a de facto relationship with a woman named Teresa Calleja. After that he went to Valladolid, were he worked at marques de Canillejas´ house. He started then a relationship with Ángela Esteban, to whom he hid he was married and promised to marry her. However, Ángela soon discovered the lie when she received a letter addressed to Francisco from his wife. Ángela Esteban presented this letter before the Tribunal together with two other letters that Francisco Bernardo Quirós had handed her in prison. When the judges showed him these letters, he assured that Ángela made him write them. Regarding his wife´s letter, he admitted it was hers and defended himself of the accusation of vagrancy by alleging that if he had not come back it was due to the lack of resources. Eventually, the defendant was condemned to either eight years´ service in the Army or in the Navy or four years´ imprisonment in an African jail, in the event he was not fit for the service.