I grant, it is very necessary that our Misconduct should be assisted, and set right by wiser Judgment; but the Danger is, and especially among the Female Sex, into what Hands this Power of Direction is committed.  The Trust of Friendship is so often betrayed, and the Duty of the Office postponed to private Interest, that it is a Question whether we are not safer, while we give a Loose to our own extravagant Excursions.  The Institution of Douegnas, or Governesses in Spain, we do not doubt, was a Design well befitting the Caution of that wise and reserved Nation; but the Corruption of the Persons intrusted, soon brought them into so much Disreputation, that they became the Objects of hatred and Scandal.

Don Francisco de Quevedo, in his general Satires, has set these Vermin in such a Light, as gives a shrewd Suspicion of their having been mischievous in his own Family.  He dreams that he is got within the Confines of Death, and, among the other visionary Figures presented, he is encountred by an old Governante. How’s this! says he, in a great Amazement, Have ye any of those Cattle in this Country?  Let the Inhabitants pray heartily for Peace then; and all little enough to keep them quiet.  In short, he makes the old Gentlewoman acquaint him, that she had been Eight Hundred Years in Hell, upon a Design to erect an Order of the Governantes; but the Right Worshipful Satanic Commissioners were not as yet come to any Resolution upon the Point:  For, they said, if your Governantes should come once to settle there, there would be no Occasion for any other Tormentors, and the Devils themselves would be but so many Jacks out of Office. I have been, says she, too in Purgatory upon the same Project, but there so soon as ever they set Eyes upon me, all the Souls cried out unanimously, Libera nos, Domine. And as for Heaven, That’s no Place for Quarrels, Slanders, Disquiets, Heart-burnings, and consequently none for Me.

These are the Douegna’s which the Suspicions of the Spaniards at first intended as Spies upon the Conduct of their Wives and Daughters.  We have a Species of Governantes among us in England, who being admitted into a Familiarity in Families, by Policy improve it into Friendship:  this Friendship lets them into a Degree of Trust, which they are diligent to turn into the best Advantage; and having always little servile Ends of their own to obtain, their surest Step is to sow Dissention, and strengthen their own Interest, by alienating the Affections of the Wife from her Husband; whose Bread they are eating at the same Time, that they are undermining his Quiet in the nearest Concerns of Life.