[Footnote 28: Coke attempts to show that there is a distinction between amercements and fines--admitting that amercements must be fixed by one's peers, but claiming that fines may be fixed by the government. (_2 Inst._ 27, _8 Coke's Reports_ 38.) But there seems to have been no ground whatever for supposing that any such distinction existed at the time of Magna Carta. If there were any such distinction in the time of Coke, it had doubtless grown up within the four centuries that had elapsed since Magna Carta, and is to be set down as one of the numberless inventions of government for getting rid of the restraints of Magna Carta, and for taking men out of the protection of their peers, and subjecting them to such punishments as the government chooses to inflict. The first statute of Westminster, passed sixty years after Magna Carta, treats the fine and amercement as synonymous, as follows: "Forasmuch as _the common fine and amercement_ of the whole county in Eyre of the justices for false judgments, or for other trespass, is unjustly assessed by sheriffs and baretors in the shires, * * it is provided, and the king wills, that from henceforth such sums shall be assessed before the justices in Eyre, afore their departure, _by the oath of knights and other honest men_," &c.--_3 Edward I., Ch._ 18. (1275.) And in many other statutes passed after Magna Carta, the terms _fine_ and _amercement_ seem to be used indifferently, in prescribing the punishment for offences. As late as 1461, (246 years after Magna Carta,) the statute _1 Edward IV., Ch._ 2, speaks of "_fines, ransoms, and amerciaments_" as being levied upon criminals, as if they were the common punishments of offences. _St._ 2 and 3 _Philip and Mary, Ch._ 8, uses the terms, "_fines, forfeitures, and amerciaments_" five times. (1555.) _St. 5 Elizabeth, Ch._ 13, _Sec._ 10, uses the terms "_fines, forfeitures, and amerciaments_." That amercements were fines, or pecuniary punishments, inflicted for offences, is proved by the following statutes, (all supposed to have been passed within one hundred and fifteen years after Magna Carta,) which speak of amercements as a species of "_judgment_," or punishment, and as being inflicted for the same offences as other "judgments." Thus one statute declares that a baker, for default in the weight of his bread, "ought to be _amerced_, or suffer the _judgment_ of the pillory;" and that a brewer, for "selling ale contrary to the assize," "ought to be _amerced_, or suffer the _judgment_ of the tumbrel."--_51 Henry III., St._ 6. (1266.) Among the "_Statutes of Uncertain Date_," but supposed to be prior to Edward III., (1326,) are the following: _Chap._ 6 provides that "if a brewer break the assize, (fixing the price of ale,) the first, second, and third time, he shall be _amerced_; but the fourth time he shall suffer _judgment_ of the pillory without redemption."