Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/918

 910 ÏEDEEAL EBPORTEH. �fog towards each other would leave time only for a momentary delusion. And so the log says, with reference to the porting of the steamer, "instantly" the ship kept away. The star- boardiug of the steamer is represented as immediately fol- lowing on this movement of the ship, and the vessels were already in instant peril of an inevitable collision. �Nothing can be plainer than that this oeBcial log makes the distance very short, and the time very brief, from the point where the ship was observed to be on her east by south course to leeward of the steamer's course, to the col- lision. The first orders given on the steamer also show that the distance was very short. The orders were "hard a-port" and "slow." �Why should thb wheel have been put hard a-port, espeeially ' if, at the same time the steamer slowed, the approaching ship being but a quarter of a point on the starboard bow, and, as then observed. making a course to the southward of the steamer's course, if she were a mile, or even a half a toile, off ? The answer, as if anticipating this eriticism, character- izes the movement as made "for greater caution." It was indeed, if true, upon the relative positions of the vessels as given by the steamer, extreme caution, and so much so as to Buggest in itself a serious doubt as to the truth of the case ehe makes. At the distance apart of a mile, a comparatively slight porting of the wheel would have been ail that was re- quired, if anything, to clear the bark, her movement being ail the time to the windward of the steamer's course. �But the master of the steamer is not only contradicted on this point by the necessary inferences to be drawn from the of&cial log, and by the probable inferences to be drawn from the measures he took on seeing the bark, but in his examina- tion before the receiver of the wrecks, dictated by himself, he expressly states the distance: "She appeared to be about one-fourth of a mile distant. Instantly put the helm hard a-port," etc. �It is claimed, on the part of the steamer, that this docu- ment is not competent evidence in the cause. This is so. The stat.ute making it admissible bas been repealed, and, ��� �