Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/601

 594 FBDEBAIi BEPOBTEB. �points and a-half on their port bow. Again, be says he saw it as soon as he brought it on the port bow. If this was so, he must have seen it considerable forward of the mizzen rig- ging. He swears that he kept the wheel steady after he goi the order till the green light appeared again. Then he had an order hard a-port, and the wheel was put hard a-port before the vessels came together. He says the green light ranged between the main and fore rigging, He also says, on oross- examination, that the vessel fell off in ail four points. �He says he observed how much she fell off by the compasa, but still he leaves it uncertain whetber it was three points oi four points. �And, if he noticed what it was by the compass ai the tirae, it is clear that when he was examined he did not remember how she was heading by the compass at the time he steadied. He also testified that she fell off under the hard a-port wheel the second time — that is, after the green light was seen and be- fore the vessels struck — two or three points, he thought, but he did not observe it by the compass. The second mate testified that he steadied at S. J E. This, being by compass, must be corrected by the variation, which makes the true heading at that time, if his statement is correct, according to the master's testimony, S. J E. If this were so, they had changed from their original course of S. E. f B. four and a-half pointa when they steadied. He also says that they were just paying off at the time of the collision, and he noticed the heading at the time of the collision, and it was S. JE.; that io, exactly what he had observed it to be when they steadied. It is dieSi- cult, if not impossible, to reconcile the testimony of the second mate and the wheelsman, or the different statements of either, made at different parts of their examination, with themselves on these material points. �If it be true, as testified to by the wheelsman, and appar- ently agreed to by the mate, that she feU off on the second porting of the wheel, then either the ship was not kept steady, as the wheelsman testifies, but was allowed through his inat- tention to come up again towards the wind, or else one of the second mate's observations of the compass was erroneous ����