Another way of “wasting” villeins was by tallaging them excessively. (For meaning of tallage cf. _infra_ c. 12.) Thus Bracton’s _Note Book_ reveals how one guardian _destruxit villanos per tallagia_ (_v._ case 485); how another exiled or destroyed villeins to the value of 300 marks (case 574); how a third destroyed two rich villeins so that they became poor and beggars and exiles (case 632). Cf. also case 691. Daines Barrington, writing towards the middle of the eighteenth century, went too far when he inferred from this passage “that the villeins who held by servile tenure were considered as so many negroes on a sugar plantation” (_Observations_, p. 7.). For a definition of “villein” see _infra_ c. 20. Footnote 393: Cf. _supra_, pp. 202-5. ----- (2) _The punishment of wasteful guardians._ The Charter provides a distinct but appropriate form of punishment for each of the two types of guardian. John promises to take “amends,” doubtless of the nature of a fine, from the “committee” who had no personal interest in the property; while the “grantee” is to forfeit the guardianship, thus losing a valuable asset for which he had probably paid a high price, sufficient punishment, perhaps, without the exaction of damages. Subsequent statutes did not, however, take so lenient a view. While the Statute of Westminster[394] merely repeated the words of Magna Carta, the Statute of Gloucester[395] enacted that the grantee who had committed waste should not only lose the custody, but should, in addition, pay to the heir any balance between the value of the wardship thus forfeited and the total damage. More severe penalties were found necessary. Statute 36 Edward III. chapter 13 enacted that the king’s Escheators (officers who first became prominent towards the close of the reign of Henry III., and who acted in the normal case as guardians of Crown wards), when guilty of waste, should “yield to the heir treble damages.” If the boy was still a minor, his friends might bring a suit on his behalf; or after he was of full age he might bring it on his own account.[396] ----- Footnote 394: 3 Edward I. c. 21. Footnote 395: 6 Edward I. c. 5. Footnote 396: Coke, _Second Institute_, p. 13, enunciates a doctrine at variance with this statute, holding that the heir who suffered damage could not, on coming of age, obtain such triple damages, or indeed any damages at all, if the king had previously taken amends himself. Coke further maintains that even after waste had been committed, the person of the heir was left in the power of the unjust guardian, explaining that when the Charter took away the office “this is understood of the land, and not of the body.” There seems, however, to be no authority for such statements. -----