[Footnote 56: "The present form of the jurors' oath is that they shall 'give a true verdict _according to the evidence_.' At what time this form was introduced is uncertain; but for several centuries after the Conquest, the jurors, _both in civil and criminal cases_, were sworn merely to _speak the truth_. (Glanville, lib. 2, cap. 17; Bracton, lib. 3, cap. 22; lib. 4, p. 287, 291; Britton, p. 135.) Hence their decision was accurately termed _veredictum_, or verdict, that is, 'a thing truly said'; whereas the phrase 'true verdict' in the modern oath is not an accurate expression."--_Political Dictionary_, word _Jury_.] [Footnote 57: Of course, there can be no legal trial by jury, in either civil or criminal cases, where the jury are sworn to try the cases "_according to law_."] [Footnote 58: _Coke_, as late as 1588, admits that amercements must be fixed by the peers (8 Coke's Rep. 38, 2 Inst. 27); but he attempts, wholly without success, as it seems to me, to show a difference between fines and amercements. The statutes are very numerous, running through the three or four hundred years immediately succeeding Magna Carta, in which fines, ransoms, and amercements are spoken of as if they were the common punishments of offences, and as if they all meant the same thing. If, however, any technical difference could be made out between them, there is clearly none in principle; and the word amercement, as used in Magna Carta, must be taken in its most comprehensive sense.] [Footnote 59: "_Common right_" was the common law. _1 Coke's Inst._ 142 a. 2 _do._ 55, 6.] [Footnote 60: The oath of the justices is in these words: