Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/922

 914 rSDEBAL BEFOBTEB. �entry in the log made by a deceased mate was offered as evidence for the ship. The Henry Coxon, ut supra. �It is argued that the act only requires a statement of the fact of collision, the names of the vessels, the time, whether day or night, and the casualtiea attending it. This, it seems to me, would be a very narrow construction of the words "circumstances under which the same oceurred," and I see nothing in the cases oited as limiting the construction of the act. �In the present case it is inconceivable that the master and mate should admit in this document, -which was drawn up by the master's dictation, that the collision was inevitable before the bark ported, unless that was in fact their judgment at the time, Tbey had every inducement to state their case as favorably for their steamer as their partial judgment of the facts would allow, and yet, knowing that the bark changed her course just before the collision, and knowing also that this was a fatal fault if not in extremis, they say explicitly that the collision was inevitable when she ported, and charge the collision to her fault in first porting, and then, after the steamer had ported to conform to that movement of the bark, suddenly, and in violation of the rules of navigation, starboarding. �This concurrence of those in charge of both vessels ought to be conclusive on the court. There is, however, in the evi- dence, other confirmation of the judgment thus expressed by the olEcers of both vessels. The order to luflf was given beeause the master of the bark saw that the steamer was falling off ; that is, going to leeward under her port wheel. If the order to put the wheel hard a-starboard had been given on board the steamer when the order to luff was given, there was certainly nothing in the movement of the steamer, as seen from the bark, to indicate that her wheel was changed. The starboarding of the steamer and the luflSng of the bark must have been, therefore, almost simultaneous, and. not in the order testified to by those on the steamer, who put the luffing of the bark after the steamer had got fairly on her course to windward under her hard a-etarboard wheel, which ��� �