Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/769

 THE LEVEBSONS, 757 �pears from the charts that she would have sufficient depth of water on a course a little east of the Thimble light, -which bears S. W. by S. from the place of collision. �Carefully and I trust fairly weighing the testimony of these two •witnesses for the libellants, I find in their statements so much that seems impossible, so much that is highly improbable, that, notwith- standing their most positive and circumstantial evidence that the lights of the schooner were burning brightly, I have not been able to bring myself to think that it would be safe to find any fact as estab- lished by their uncorroborated testimony. �We corne next to the testimony adduced in behalf of the owners of the steamer, and to the consideration of the question whether, even if the libellants' testimony does not account for the collision, any facts are proved which show that the steamer was in fault in not keeping out of the way and avoiding the schooner. <>. �The pilot was a young man who had not yet obtained a full certifi- cate to pilot vessels of over 12^ feet draught, and he was accepted by the master of the steamer only because there was no full branch pilot on board the pilot-boat which spoke him off the capes. His capacity and acquirements are, however, fully proved by the older pilots, and they seem to have thought well enough of him to appoint him master of their own steam pilot-boat. He states that he was on the upper bridge, and that the steamer had been for half an hour on a course north by east by her compass, but as the compass varied a point to the west, her true course, and the course he intended her to be on, was due north; that after she had been on that course half an hour the lookout reported a white light ahead; that he put up his glasses and saw a vessel with a white light about a point and a half over the steamer's starboard bow and about 300 yards off-; that at the first moment he supposed it was the light of a vessel at anchor, but that putting up his glasses he saw it was a vessel under sail, appar- ently moving in a southerly direction; that almost immediately he observed that she was changing her course so as to cross the steam- er's bow ; that he at once ordered the helm hard a-port and signalled by the telegraph to reverse the engines at full speed astern ; that under the port helm the steamer's bow went off easterly to N. E. by N., which was her direction at the moment of collision; that just before the collision and when the port side of the schooner was towards him he saw that the dim white light which had been reported came from her cabin ; that if the schooner's port light had been burn- ing he could not have failed to have seen it. ��� �