Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/114

 TABWELIi "6-. STBAMBOAT 3. H. STABIN. 107 �the memory afterwards is far more retentive of those eventa that were immediately connected with the collision than those more remote ; but also partly becanse the collision itself arrests the attention of the parties at the tinae and fixes the immedi- ate course of events with greater certainty of observation than the same persons are ordinarily in the habit of using ; and» finally, this theory is clearly inconsis'ent with the libel and answers put in on the part of the steamboat. �In the libel against the schooner it is alleged "the green light only of a vessel, which afterwards proved to be the schooner Joseph Farwell, was seen and reported by the look- out, and was at the same time, or a little before, seen by the pilot. Such light, when seen, bore from two to three points on the starboard bow of the steamboat. With the wind as it was, the said schooner could have held, without difficulty, the regular course of that reach of the channel which she was bound to do, viz. : a course parallel to the course of the steamboat ; and, inasmuch as she was on the starboard bow of the steamboat, showing her green light, no collision could have occurred if said schooner had held her course." �This statement clearly implies that when the green light was seen the schooner was running nearly on the opposite course to that of the steamboat, that is, nearly south-west, and continued on that course till she suddenly changed her course more to the westward, and ran into the steamboat. It is impossible, therefore, that the sudden change, almost under the bows of the steamboat, should have been a change from an eastward taek to a westward tack. �It is stated as a change from a westward tack by the wind, or nearly so, to a course more off the wind to the westward» And if, when first seen, she had been standing to the east- ward, she would bave seemed to those on the steamboat to be moving a|most directly across their course, which evidently was not the case, as they state it in their pleadings. It is clear, therefore, from the pleadings of the steamboat, that she admits the schooner was for half or three-quarters of a mile, after being seen from the steamboat, on her port tack, and ����