An advertisement appeared in The Exeter Flying Post of 31st August 1809, to this effect:
"There are in the Exeter Cavalry Barracks, FORTY WOMEN and NINETY-SIX CHILDREN belonging to the Soldiers of the 9th Regt. of Light Dragoons who are now serving their country in the Expedition to Holland. These women and children are in the greatest stress, being almost in a starving state, having nothing to subsist on, and their little property of cloathes, &c. they have been obliged to dispose of to maintain themselves since their husbands' departure.
"They came to Exeter with the remainder of the regiment, to await the result of the Expedition; and in the interim the kindness of the public is appealed to, to relieve them from their present extreme want. - Whatever assistance the public may be disposed to render, will be received by Mr. W. Curson, library, High-street, Exeter, who will give any further particulars; and the subscriptions, as received, will be immediately transmitted to the Commanding-Officer, who has engaged to see them properly distributed and applied."
The dragoons had left for the disastrous Walcheren Expedition, They had only just landed in the marshes of that malaria-ridden island and they needed to clear it of French defenders. Few of the 9th Dragoons died in battle but, by the end of the year, 152 of them had died of the 'Walcheren Fever' and many more were sickened for life.
Of the women and many children who were close to starving in the Exeter Higher Barracks and popping down town to pawn their 'cloathes &c.' some would surely have been widows and orphans by the time the regiment came home.
I hope the patriotic citizens of Exeter acted generouly towards them. I'm sure they did.
I was intrigued to see the word stress being used in this context in 1809.
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