sheer fabrication,) no
interpretation better suited to his purpose than this. It seems never to
have entered his mind, (or if it did, he intended that it should never
enter the mind of anybody else,) that the object of the chapter could be
to deprive the king of the power of putting his creatures into criminal
courts, to pack, cheat, and browbeat juries, and thus maintain his
authority by procuring the conviction of those who should transgress his
laws, or incur his displeasure.

This example of Coke tends to show how utterly blind, or how utterly
corrupt, English judges, (dependent upon the crown and the legislature),
have been in regard to everything in Magna Carta, that went to secure
the liberties of the people, or limit the power of the government.

Coke's interpretation of this chapter of Magna Carta is of a piece with
his absurd and gratuitous interpretation of the words "_nec super eum
ibimus, nec super eum mittemus_," which was pointed out in a former
article, and by which he attempted to give a _judicial_ power to the
king and his judges, where Magna Carta had given it only to a jury. It
is also of a piece with his pretence that there was a difference
between _fine_ and _amercement_, and that _fines_ might be imposed by
the king, and that juries were required only for fixing _amercements_.

These are some of the innumerable frauds by which the English people
have been cheated out of the trial by jury.

_Ex uno disce omnes._ From one judge learn the characters of all.[91]

I give in the note additional and abundant authorities for the meaning
ascribed to the word _bailiff_. The importance of the principle involved
will be a sufficient excuse for such an accumulation of authorities as
would otherwise be tedious and perhaps unnecessary.[92]

The foregoing interpretation of the chapter of Magna Carta now under
discussion, is corroborated by another chapter of Magna Carta, which
specially provides that the king's justices shall "go through every
county" to "take the assizes" (hold jury trials) in three kinds of
_civil_ actions, to wit, "novel disseisin, mort de ancestor, and darrein
presentment;" but makes no mention whatever of their holding jury trials
in _criminal_ cases,--an omission wholly unlikely to be made, if it
were designed they should attend the trial of such causes. Besides, the
chapter here spoken of (in John's charter) does not allow these justices
to sit _alone_ in jury trials, even in _civil_