Collector's discretion

There is a confidence placed in the discretion of a Collector, in cases of this kind, which may be abused, but which ought to protect him from loss when there is no reason to believe, as there is not in this case, that the detention proceeded from sinister motives, and not from a conscientious desire of discharging his duty. To subject a Collector, or any public officer, to such an imputation, when acting under a discretion thus reposed in him, the circumstances ought to be such as almost to preclude the possibility of his having acted but from some unworthy or dishonourable motive.