Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/920

 912 FEDERAL REPORTER. �the bark and the testimony of her witnesses strongly cor- roborate the officiai log as to the suddfennesa and close prox- imity in which the vessels appeared to each other, and the imminence of the danger from the beginning. Measuring the time and the distance by what was actually done on both vessels, and the time required to do it, and by the speed of the vessels as .they approached each other, the distance of a quarter of a mile, and a minute or less in time, will most perfectly account for and harmonize with the proved facts of t'oe collision. �It is proved, among other circumstances, that the sails of the bark were full when she struck. This would have been impossible if she luffed bo much, as is claimed on the part of the steamer. The next question is whether the collision was already inevitable when the bark luffed. If, as testified to by those on the steamer, she was then three points on the star- board bow of the steamer, and an eighth of a mile away, clearly the collision was not inevitable, and the bark, being already clear of the steamer, threw herself directly in the way of danger. The luffing of the bark can be justified only, if at ail, on the ground that it was in extremis; that either the collision was already inevitable, and the movement of the bark only changed the place and direction of the blow, or that she had been brought into such a position of extreme peril by the fault of the steamer, and the danger of collision was so great, if she kept her course, that the error of judg- ment, if it was one, in luffing to avoid the peril, was par- donable. The Bywell Castle, E. L. E. e P. D. 219. �The latter alternative I do not find it necessary to deter- mine, because there is proof enough that when the bark ported the collision was inevitable. This question is, of eourse, very closely connected with the question of the dis- tance at which the vessels sighted one another, and the ques- tion how far they swung from their respective courses on their changes of wheel. The master of the steamer testifies that if the bark had kept on her course to the southward, across his bow, and the steamer had kept on her course with her hard a-port whôel, they woùld have gone clear and passed ��� �