Early letter from mother of important Union spy.

4 pp. including stampless address leaf. To her husband, John Van Lew, Richmond, Virginia. Wear at folds, a few fold tears with no loss of text, a margin tear, but not much loss, some aging, very busy letter, but very legible; good overall. In St. Augustine, Eliza Van Lew (1798-1875) met a variety of local residents, from Spanish Cuban grandees of the Arredondo family, which had received some 300,000 acres of Florida land by royal grant, to the free African-American who drove her and her baby around town.Elizabeth Van Lew (1818-1900) was 15 years old when her mother Eliza took her ailing year-old brother to winter in Florida (Florida was still a territory when this letter was written) for his health. Elizabeth was sent to live with Abolitionist relatives while attending school in Pennsylvania. She wholeheartedly embraced her Abolitionist heritage. At the beginning of the Civil War, she brought together a hodgepodge of pro-Union sympathizers, from slaves to slaveholders, to secretly convey valuable military intelligence to the Union Army. As Van Lew's definitive biographer notes that little is known about the earlier years of Elizabeth's life, this insight into her mother's observations is historically significant.As both the daughter of a Mayor of Philadelphia who had been a passionate Abolitionist and the wife of a plantation owner of a half-dozen slaves, Mrs. Van Lew may have felt the need to be cautious in discussing the burning issue of slavery; this is reflected in writing her husband, "My black driver is in luck, he has had a fortune of twenty thousand dollars left him by an uncle in Havana, he has no idea of giving up his employment till certain of the money however and don't appear at all elated by his good fortune. He intends going to Havana, he says, shortly. I have become acquainted with one or two ladies from Havana, they say the blacks enjoy great privileges there in consequence of taking side with the King in the war for independence some years since. His Spanish majesty granted them many immunities and has given orders to his officers there to protect them. They have a great many black troops with only a white captain. Miss Aradonda says she is as afraid as death of them and would prefer living here on that account; the inhabitants are all fearful of an insurrection but they endeavour to conceal their fears...."