Sentence:  Devereux, indeed, being a fast man, with such acres as he inherited, which certainly did not reach a thousand, mortgaged pretty smartly, and with as much personal debt beside, of the fashionable and refined sort, as became a young buck of bright though doubtful expectations ... was beholden, not only for his fun, but, occasionally for his daily bread and even his liberty, to those benevolent <WSD>doles</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Money or other goods given as charity.