Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/823

 816 FEDERAL REPORTBB. �•was in a very excited condition, and kept calling, in a dis- traeted way, to his men, to know if the pump sucked. At last one of them replied: 'Tes, damn her, she sueks." Just after the two vessels came together some one on board of the Mary Weaver jumped on board the Onmst with a bight of a line, and made it fast to the capstan of the Onmst. Another Une was passed from the Onmst to the Mary Weaver. The captain of the Mary Weaver asked the captain of the Onmst to lie by him, which the latter consented to do for awhile, although not deeming the Mary Weaver in danger of sinking. The Onmst laid by the Mary Weaver for more than two hours, and, after staying this length of time, and after hear- ing from some one on her deck that the pump continued to suck, (indicating that she was free from water, and in no danger of sinking,) and also hearing that the Mary Weaver's boat was in good condition, and the Long Island shore being only from a mile and a half to two miles distant, and the Onmst herself being in a crippled condition, having lost her head-gear and liable to lose her masts, the captain of the Onmst did not regard it that the dictates either of humanity or prudence required him to lie by any longer. In order to cast off it was necessary to eut the line, as it was so far turned around the capstan that any other method was impractieable. �Fifth. That ail and singular the premises are true. �It is seen at a glance that one question, not to say the principal question, presented for inquiry and adjudication is, was the Onmst or the Mary Weaver the blameworthy vessel as regards the collision of the seventeenth of December? The libellants allege that the Onmst was in fault and the Mary Weaver innocent — the libellees alleging that the Mary Weaver was in fault and the Onmst innocent. As bearing upon this point, the sixteenth and seventeenth Eules of Navigation were cited and expounded by the parties, the discussion terminat- ing in an agreement between them that, whichever of these rules governed the case at bar, it was the statutory duty of the Mary Weaver, under the circumstances in proof, to keep out of the way of the Onmst — that is, to turn and keep to the right. The questions at issue, then, became these : 1. Did ����