From Chapter 4:
From the various entries in the "Diary" relating to the purchase of tobacco, it seems clear that there was no shop in Exeter devoted specially or exclusively to the sale of the weed. Hayne bought his supplies from four of the leading goldsmiths of the city, who can be identified by the fact that he had dealings with them in their own special wares, also from two drapers, one grocer, and four other tradesmen (on a single occasion each) whose particular occupations are unknown.

From Chapter 7:
The country gentlemen of the time followed the hounds and enjoyed rural sports of all kinds, drank ale, and smoked tobacco. They had their smoking-rooms too. Walter Gale, schoolmaster at Mayfield, Sussex, noted in his Journal under date March 26, 1751: "I went to Mr. Baker's for the list of scholars, and found him alone in the smoaking-room; he ordered a pint of mild beer for me, an extraordinary thing." Gale himself was a regular smoker, and too fond of pints of ale.

Fielding has immortalized the squire of the mid-eighteenth century in his picture of that sporting, roaring, swearing, drinking, smoking, affectionate, irascible, blundering, altogether extraordinary owner of broad acres, Squire Western. We may shrewdly suspect that the portrait of Western is somewhat over-coloured, and cannot fairly be taken as typical; but there is sufficient evidence to show that in some respects at least—in his enthusiasm for sport and love of ale and tobacco—Western is representative of the country squires of his day.