But lace is not the only thing that comes from Honiton. Cider is made there, and in the reign of George II making it must have been a very profitable occupation. Defoe notes: 'They tell us they send twenty thousand hogsheads of cider hence every year to London, and (which is still worse) that it is most of it bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines--which, if true, is not much to the reputation of the London vintners. But that by-the-bye.' As cider-making was then in such a prosperous condition, it is easy to understand the tremendous outcry that arose a few years later, when Lord Bute imposed the enormous tax of ten shillings per hogshead, to be paid by the first buyer. The storm provoked was so violent, the opposition of country gentlemen of all shades of politics so unanimous, that the Prime Minister modified the tax to one of four shillings on each hogshead, to be paid by the grower, who was thereby rendered liable to the domiciliary visits of excisemen. This alteration was vehemently protested against, and Pitt championed the opposition on the grounds that it was an Englishman's pride that every man's house was his castle, and denounced as intolerable a Bill that allowed excisemen to invade the house of any gentleman who 'owned a few fruit-trees and made a little cider.' The City of London sent petitions to the Commons, the Lords, and the Throne; and the counties of Devon and Hereford, the cities of Exeter and Worcester, urged their respective Members to make all possible resistance to the tax. Lord Bute's personal unpopularity increased enormously, and a shoal of squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared, in which he was held up to ridicule and contempt. One caricature represented him as 'hung on the gallows over a fire, on which a jack-boot fed the flames, and a farmer was throwing an excised cyder barrel into the conflagration. In rural districts he was burnt under the effigy of a _jack-boot_, a rural allusion to his name.' An amusing story is told of Lord North in connection with this tax. Not long after it had been imposed, he and Sir Robert Hamilton came to Ashe, near Axminster, on a visit--Lord North, then a Lord of the Treasury, distinctly uneasy as to the risk of coming into Devonshire, for the county was still seething with dissatisfaction against the Government. 'He was one day thrown into great alarm by a large party of reapers, who, having finished cutting the wheat of the estate, approached the house with their hooks in their hands, shouting the usual cry, "We have'n! we have'n!" The portentous words Lord North applied to himself, and, pale with terror, considered himself a dead man. Sir Robert Hamilton seized a sword, and was sallying forth to repulse the visitors, when, meeting a member of the household, an explanation took place, by which the fears so unconsciously excited were removed.'