In common, what was in itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some circumstances of palliation.

The Arab was hospitable; the robber brave.

We did not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice.

But here the case was far otherwise.

It was the prerogative of this detested traffic to separate from evil its concomitant good, and to reconcile discordant mischiefs.