Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/640

 G Sa FEDERAL REPORTER. �the steamer continuing still on the schooner's starboard bow, ■when suddenly the steamer showed her port liglit, and came squarely across the course of the scliooner ; that the schooner had continued to hold her course during ail the time, Lut when it was discovered that a collision was unavoidable the master of the schooner ordered her helm to starboard, in the hope of easing the force of the blow; but the starboard bow of the schooner struck the port side of the steamship, forward of the bridge, and the schooner was so iujured that she hlled with water and sank within an hour. �The answer of the claimants of the steamer alleges that she was proceeding up the bay at four miles an hour, using but one of her boilers, the other being disabled, but with spead suffieient to make her respond to her helm; that her regu- lation lights were properly placed and burniug, a Chesapeake bay pilot on her main bridge, her mate on the skeleton bridge, and a lookout on the bow, when, a little after 7 p. m., the pilot and mate saw, with the aid of a glass, the sails of the schooner, four or five miles ofï, a quarter of a point on the steamer's port bow; that at 7 : 20 p. m. the pilot and mate saw, and the lookout reported, the red light of the schooner three- quarters of a point over the steamer's port bow, betweeu tliree and four miles oflf; that the helm of the steamer was ported, and in few seconds put hard a-port, causing the steamer to fall oflf more than three points to the starboard ; that the vessels continued to approach until within less than a quarter of a mile apart, the schooner being then betweeu three and four points on the steamer's port bow, and her red light only vis- ible, when she suddenly starboarded her helm and turned her head directly across the track of the steamer, exhibited only her green light, and ran into the steamer ; that the speed of the schooner was from seven to eight miles an hour, and that of the steamer four, so that their combined speed was between 11 and 12 miles, and that after the schooner changed her course there was not time to check the speed of tiie steamer, but her best plan was to try to pass before they shbuld corne together. �The libellants produced the master of the schooner, whose ��� �