Devonshire Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

the City of London, followed the example of the capital, and implored their representatives to resist the tax to the utmost; and an indignant and general threat was made that the apples should be suffered to fall and rot under the trees rather than be made into cyder, subject to such a duty and such annoyances. No fiscal question had raised such a tempest since Sir Robert Walpole’s Excise Bill in 1733. But Walpole, in the plenitude of his power and abilities, and with wondrous resources at command, was constrained to bow to the storm he had roused, and to shelve his scheme. Bute, on the other hand, with a power that lasted but a day, with a position already undermined, with slender abilities and no resources, but with Scotch stubbornness, was resolved that his Bill should pass. And it passed, with all its imperfections; and although there were different sorts of cyder, varying in price from 5s. to 50s. per hogshead, they were all taxed alike – the poor man having thus to pay as heavy a duty for his thin beverage as the affluent man paid for the choicest kind. The agitation against Lord Bute grew. In some rural districts he was burnt under the effigy of a jack-boot, a rustic allusion to his name (Bute); and on more than one occasion when he walked the streets he was accused of being surrounded by prize-fighters to protect him against the violence of the mob. Numerous squibs, caricatures, and pamphlets appeared. He was represented as hung on the gallows above a fire, in which a jack-boot fed the flames and a farmer was throwing an excised cyder-barrel into the conflagration, whilst a Scotchman, in Highland costume, in the background, commented, “It’s aw over with us now, and aw our aspiring hopes are gone”; whilst an English mob advanced waving the banners of Magna Charta, and “Liberty, Property, and No Excise.”

      I give one of the ballads printed on this occasion: it is entitled, “The Scotch Yoke, and English Resentment. To the tune of The Queen’s Ass.”

      Of Freedom no longer let Englishmen boast,

      Nor Liberty more be their favourite Toast;

      The Hydra Oppression your Charta defies,

      And galls English Necks with the Yoke of Excise,

      The Yoke of Excise, the Yoke of Excise,

      And galls English Necks with the Yoke of Excise.

      In vain have you conquer’d, my brave Hearts of Oak,

      Your Laurels, your Conquests are all but a Joke;

      Let a rascally Peace serve to open your Eyes,

      And the d – nable Scheme of a Cyder-Excise,

      A Cyder-Excise, etc.

      What though on your Porter a Duty was laid,

      Your Light double-tax’d, and encroach’d on your Trade;

      Who e’er could have thought that a Briton so wise

      Would admit such a Tax as the Cyder-Excise,

      The Cyder-Excise, etc.

      I appeal to the Fox, or his Friend John a-Boot,

      If tax’d thus the Juice, then how soon may the Fruit?

      Adieu then to good Apple-puddings and Pyes,

      If e’er they should taste of a cursed Excise,

      A cursed Excise, etc.

      Let those at the Helm, who have sought to enslave

      A Nation so glorious, a People so brave,

      At once be convinced that their Scheme you despise,

      And shed your last Blood to oppose the Excise,

      Oppose the Excise, etc.

      Come on then, my Lads, who have fought and have bled,

      A Tax may, perhaps, soon be laid on your Bread;

      Ye Natives of Worc’ster and Devon arise,

      And strike at the Root of the Cyder-Excise,

      The Cyder-Excise, etc.

      No longer let K – s at the H – m of the St – e,

      With fleecing and grinding pursue Britain’s Fate;

      Let Power no longer your Wishes disguise,

      But off with their Heads – by the Way of Excise,

      The Way of Excise, etc.

      From two Latin words, ex and scindo, I ween,

      Came the hard Word Excise, which to Cut off does mean.

      Take the Hint then, my Lads, let your Freedom advise,

      And give them a Taste of their fav’rite Excise,

      Their fav’rite Excise, etc.

      Then toss off your Bumpers, my Lads, while you may,

      To Pitt and Lord Temple, Huzza, Boys, huzza!

      Here’s the King that to tax his poor Subjects denies,

      But Pox o’ the Schemer that plann’d the Excise,

      That plann’d the Excise, etc.

      The apple trees were too many and too deep-rooted and too stout for the Scotch thistle. The symptoms of popular dislike drove Bute to resign (8 April, 1763), to the surprise of all. The duty, however, was not repealed till 1830. In my Book of the West (Devon), I have given an account of cyder-making in the county, and I will not repeat it here. But I may mention the curious Devonshire saying about Francemass, or St. Franken Days. These are the 19th, 20th, and 21st May, at which time very often a frost comes that injures the apple blossom. The story goes that there was an Exeter brewer, of the name of Frankin, who found that cyder ran his ale so hard that he vowed his soul to the devil on the condition that his Satanic Majesty should send three frosty nights in May annually to cut off the apple blossom.

      And now to return to Hugh Stafford. He opens his letter with an account of the origin of the Royal Wilding, one of the finest sorts of apple for the making of choice cyder.

      “Since you have seen the Royal Wilding apple, which is so very much celebrated (and so deservedly) in our county, the history of its being first taken notice of, which is fresh in everybody’s memory, may not be unacceptable to you. The single and only tree from which the apple was first propagated is very tall, fair, and stout; I believe about twenty feet high. It stands in a very little quillet (as we call it) of gardening, adjoining to the post-road that leads from Exeter to Oakhampton, in the parish of St. Thomas, but near the borders of another parish called Whitestone. A walk of a mile from Exeter will gratify any one, who has curiosity, with the sight of it.

      “It appears to be properly a wilding, that is, a tree raised from the kernel of an apple, without having been grafted, and (which seems well worth observing) has, in all probability, stood there much more than seventy years, for two ancient persons of the parish of Whitestone, who died several years since, each aged upwards of the number of years before mentioned, declared, that when they were boys, probably twelve or thirteen years of age, and first went the road, it was not only growing there, but, what is worth notice, was as tall and stout as it now appears, nor do there at this time appear any marks of decay upon it that I could perceive.

      “It is a very constant and plentiful bearer every other year, and then usually produces apples enough to make one of our hogsheads of cyder, which contains sixty-four gallons, and this was one occasion of its being first taken notice of, and of its affording an history which, I believe, no other tree ever did: For the little cot-house to which it belongs, together with the little quillet in which it stands, being several years since mortgaged for ten pounds, the fruit of this tree alone, in a course of some years, freed the house and garden, and its more valuable self, from that burden.

      “Mr. Francis Oliver (a gentleman of the neighbourhood, and, if I mistake not, the gentleman who had the mortgage just now mentioned) was one of the first persons about Exeter that affected rough cyder, and, for that reason, purchased the fruit of this tree every bearing year. However, I cannot learn that he ever made cyder of it alone, but mix’d with other apples, which added to the flavour of his cyder, in the opinion of those who had a true relish for that liquor.

      “Whether